"It is open," Chiun announced before slipping inside.
On the sidewalk Remo hesitated. The nearby tourists were watching the guard whose hat had inexplicably swallowed his head. As the man stumbled and swore, cameras clicked.
No one was paying attention to Remo. He didn't know what else to do. Sliding reluctantly from the sidewalk, he followed the Master of Sinanju inside. He caught up to the tiny Korean near the palace. "What do you think you're-"
Chiun silenced him before he could say another word.
"Follow close and keep your mouth shut."
The wizened Asian spoke with great seriousness. With a furrowed brow, Remo did as he was told.
They entered the palace undetected.
Remo had been in royal and presidential palaces before. The trappings of royalty did nothing to impress him. He saw high ceilings and fancy paintings that were there because someone in the hazy past had decided they were royal just because they'd mounted more Viking heads on their walls than the guy next door, and enough of their countrymen had bought into the kingly con job to make it stick.
"Do not let your low-bred eye be bedazzled by the opulence of this place," Chiun hissed over his shoulder as they slipped up a corridor. "After all, you are American and therefore unused to good taste."
"Good taste, schmood taste. Give me the local mall over this snob smokehouse any day of the week."
"And the ugly American rears his ill-bred head yet again," Chiun whispered in reply. "Not that I entirely disagree with you. The palaces of ancient Persia. Now, they would have impressed even your Visigothic eye. Still, for a Western palace this is not without its charms."
"Yeah, I'm really impressed," Remo said aridly. "They invent indoor plumbing around here yet or do they still hang the royal arses out over the Thames?"
He was surprised that they hadn't encountered anyone yet. They had traveled deep in the palace without seeing another living soul. Remo figured they'd be armpit deep in butlers, falcon trainers and ladies-in-waiting by now.
In a hallway off the beaten path, the Master of Sinanju stopped at a gilded tapestry on which was depicted the Battle of Agincourt. Outnumbered English archers with longbows were slaughtering French knights. Henry V stood amid the chaos, resplendent in gleaming armor. At the king's side stood another man. The face caught Remo's attention.
He peered closer. The man had Korean features. "Relative of yours?" Remo asked.
Chiun wasn't paying attention. He had pulled up an edge of the tapestry. Manipulating the molding of the paneling beneath, he swung open a section. The old man slipped through the secret door.
Unable to hide his curiosity, Remo followed him inside.
The long passage beyond was dusty. Thick ropes of cobweb hung across their path. On one side grimy windows overlooked a courtyard that time had apparently forgotten. Overgrown vines swallowed stone benches and an ancient shed while shrubs and weeds grew wild.
"Okay," Remo said as the secret door swung shut behind them. "I've been patient long enough, but this is getting too weird. Wanna tell me what we're doing here?"
They had come to the end of the long hallway. Even as Remo was finishing his question, the two of them were stepping out into a larger room.
Remo stopped dead. "Oh," he said, his voice small.
The chamber they had come to was some sort of throne room. At least Remo assumed it was a throne room. He had two very good reasons for thinking it was. For one thing there was a pretty damned ornate throne standing on a small platform against the far wall. For another-and this almost assured him that this was indeed a throne room-the queen of England was sitting on the throne.
"Um, Chiun?" Remo whispered.
But the Master of Sinanju had swept ahead of him, gliding up to the throne. He offered a deep bow. "Your Majesty," Chiun intoned. "Sinanju bids most humble and undeserved greeting to Elizabeth II, Defender of the Faith and Queen by the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions Beyond the Seas. We stand before you as wretched and unworthy servants to your glorious crown."
"Greetings, Master of Sinanju," the queen replied. She wore a simple blue dress and silver crown. In her white-gloved hands she clasped the strap of her omnipresent purse. "You do us honor with this visit. We trust your journey was safe and bid you welcome to our shore."
Remo was still at the door, uncertain what to do. There were two men standing beside the queen. Although he had never met the man to the left of Her Royal Highness, Remo recognized the teeth, chin and hair. Britain's prime minister stood like a confused rat.
On the queen's right was a man Remo knew all too well.
Sir Guy Philliston was the head of Source, Britain's top spy agency. Sir Guy was a little older now, with graying temples and soft wrinkles around his eyes, but he still had male-model good looks. Philliston was so handsome that women regularly lined up beside his bed. They were invariably disappointed by the Men Only sign nailed to the headboard.
Remo sensed something was different when, unlike their usual encounters, Sir Guy didn't leer at him. Standing beside the queen, the Source head looked more businesslike than ever, if somewhat ill at ease. This was too much for Remo to comprehend. He was actually in a secret throne room with England's queen and prime minister. What's more, he and Chiun had obviously been expected. As he tried to make sense of the scene, Remo thought he heard someone call his name. When he looked up, he saw that Chiun was glancing back at him.
"Remo, approach the throne and be recognized," the old man repeated, a tight smile plastered across his face.
"Oh, sorry." Stepping forward, Remo wiped his dry palm on his thigh and offered it to Her Highness. "Hiya."
Thinking better after the dirtiest of dirty looks from Chiun, he dropped the hand to his side and offered a formal bow. He felt foolish.
"This is the one who will succeed you?" the queen asked the Master of Sinanju.
Although her use of language was precise in the extreme, she didn't speak with disapproval or disappointment. It occurred to Remo that, even though she had been famous all of his life, he had never before heard her voice.
"He is my son and heir, Your Majesty," Chiun replied.
The queen turned her regal gaze to Remo. "In that case, we welcome you, son of the awesome Master of Sinanju."
Still seated upon her throne, the queen offered a slight bow of her head.
At a nudge from Chiun, Remo returned the bow. The instant his head was down, he felt a sharp displacement of air beside his throat.
"What the?" Remo said, jumping back.
In the queen's gloved hand was a long needle that she had hidden behind her purse. The instant Remo bowed, she'd tried to jab him in the throat. When he jumped, she missed.
Forward momentum kept the needle going. Before she could stop it, the needle swept around, burying deep in the thigh of the prime minister.
The PM let out a yelp that was all jutting teeth and bugging eyes. He slapped a hand to the spot where the queen had harpooned him. For a moment he just stood there. Then he pitched forward on his pale face.
"What the cripes was that all about?" Remo demanded.
Sir Guy Philliston rushed over to check the pulse of the deceased PM.
Chiun tsk-tsked. "That is not permitted, Your Majesty," he scolded the British monarch.
"Bet your ass it's not," Remo snapped. "The frickin' queen of England just tried to kill me. That pin had some kind of poison on it. Lookit. What'shis-face is dead." He pushed a toe against the late prime minister.
Chiun's face grew mildly impatient. "Didn't you hear me? Didn't you hear me tell her it was wrong of her to do so?"
"We beg forgiveness," the queen interjected.
"Pipe down, hairdo," Remo growled at Her Majesty. To Chiun, he said, "Let me guess. This has something to do with the Sinanju Time of Succession."
"What else would it have to do with?" the Master of Sinanju replied in Korean. "Now be still. You are embarrassing me in front of the queen."
>
"Fine. In that case, I'm gone."
He started to march away. In an instant he changed his mind and wheeled around.
"Screw it," he said. Dodging Chiun, he marched up to the throne and snatched the queen's purse from her hands. "I've always wanted to know what the hell's so important you gotta schlep this around all the time."
Flipping the purse upside down, he shook it out over the steps.
He expected snotty hankies or some secret lease that would turn Boston over to the redcoats in 2076. Instead, a single, small framed picture dropped out. Remo grabbed up the silver frame. He looked at the picture.
He looked at Chiun.
He looked back at the picture.
When Remo looked once more at the Master of Sinanju, astonishment had overtaken anger.
"It's you," he said in amazement.
The picture was of a Chiun much younger than Remo had ever known him. The man in the photograph had black hair and an unwrinkled face. But there was no mistaking who it was.
The old Korean snatched the picture from his pupil's hand. A faint blush had risen in his cheeks. He handed purse and picture back to the queen. With a bow and an embarrassed goodbye, he quickly left the throne room.
Remo didn't know what to do. He didn't bother to bow to the queen or glance at Philliston. He left the small throne room and hurried back into the hall after his teacher.
As soon as they were gone, Sir Guy Philliston fumbled a cell phone from his pocket.
"They are on their way," he said. "Yes, just the young one. Be alert. He is better than anything you've ever seen." He clicked the phone shut. "Source's top agent will be in position momentarily, Your Majesty."
The queen said nothing. She was staring at the picture in her hands. After a lingering moment, she dropped the silver frame back inside her purse, snapping it shut with a crisp click.
Chapter 7
The elegant man in the black bowler hat had parked in the no-parking zone in front of Harrods department store in the heart of London. The car the man leaned against as he waited was a yellow classic Bentley that looked like a shiny wheeled lemon in the bright midday sun.
He had been parked there for some time. A manager from the store who had spied him through a window was going to send someone to chase him away. But when the store employee saw how elegantly the man was dressed and how regal was his bearing, he had second thoughts. The stranger was so lordly it just seemed wrong to disturb him. So even though it was hip these days to scorn the landed aristocracy, the upper classes were in full cultural retreat and the hereditary peers in the House of Lords had been downsized back to the Dark Ages, the Harrods manager had given special instructions to ignore the man next to the gleaming yellow Bentley.
When a policeman walking up the sidewalk paused to question the man, the bobby was offered a cool smile and a glass of Dom Perignon champagne from the bottle that was chilling on ice in the Bentley's back seat. The officer accepted the smile, refused the drink and-by the time he headed up the sidewalk-was apologizing profusely for disturbing the well-dressed man.
The man waiting at the car was used to such reactions. Thomas Smedley had been getting them all his life.
Smedley was a true gentleman. In a world that had been surrendered to the coarse and profane, he exuded the once common and laudable Britishness that had gone out of vogue long before the dying days of the previous century.
"We Smedleys were gentlemen when the rest of the lower orders were still eating fleas out of each other's fur," his father was fond of saying. "Which, by Smedley time, was about quarter to three yesterday afternoon."
Even as a lad in kneesocks and knickers, Thomas Smedley was already a gentleman.
He was a gentleman at Eton, a gentleman during his stint in the British army guards regiment and a gentleman into his life's work as a top spy for Her Majesty's government.
Most people who knew him as a spy suspected he worked for MI-5 or MI-6. People connected with those agencies, who knew perfectly well Thomas Smedley didn't work for either, joked that he must be employed by MI-6 and a half. Only a handful knew that Thomas Smedley was the top counterespionage agent for the highly secret British organization known only as Source.
Those who passed him on the street this day had no way of knowing that beneath that cool exterior beat the ice-cold heart of Britain's most lethal killer.
Smedley couldn't count the number of times he had killed for queen and country, nor did he care to venture a guess. The fact that they were all dead meant that he was still alive and that was just fine with Thomas Smedley.
Smedley sipped champagne as he waited.
In addition to his black bowler, Smedley wore an impeccably tailored double-breasted navy-blue suit with brass buttons. A neatly knotted blue tie with white polka dots hung over his lavender shirt. In spite of the fact that the sun had decided to put in a rare and welcome appearance above London, a black umbrella dangled from Smedley's forearm.
As he sipped his champagne, he checked his pocket watch. A single raised eyebrow showed his displeasure.
The instant the eyebrow went up, the front door of the store opened. A thin, curvaceous woman, her arms stacked high with colored boxes, strode into the sunlight.
At the woman's appearance, every man on the street stopped and stared. They couldn't help it. She had the kind of beauty that could only be described as dangerous. Perfect smile, perfect cheekbones, perfect nose. Her eyes were brown pools flecked with green. As she walked, her shimmering black hair skipped across her proud shoulders. The men who saw her wanted her. The women envied her. As she marched from Harrods, she scorned them all. Silver shoes were matched by a silver clasped belt that hung around the waist of her burgundy, long-skirted top. Her red silk palazzo pants shimmered with every step as she stepped coolly over to the waiting yellow car.
"You're late, Mrs. Knight," Smedley said as he popped the rear door for her.
"Mr. Smedley," the woman said liltingly in reply, "threats to the crown come and threats to the crown go, but a sale like this is a once-in-a-year event."
Mrs. Knight dumped her boxes in the back of the car. As Smedley returned his champagne glass to the bar, she passed her lips very close to his cheek in something that might have been a kiss or a whisper. With a devilish smile, she dropped, giggling, into the back seat.
Leaving her in the rear, Smedley marched crisply around to the driver's side and slipped in behind the wheel. He set his umbrella on the seat beside him. In another moment he was pulling out into London traffic.
In the back seat Mrs. Knight wriggled out of her loose-fitting outfit. She pulled a change of clothes from a valise she'd stashed in the car before her side trip to the store.
In the rearview mirror, Smedley watched as Mrs. Knight slipped her long legs into her tight-fitting outfit. To do so she had to slide her bare bottom to the edge of the seat.
"I have never wanted more to be a leather seat, Mrs. Knight," Smedley commented.
"Perhaps later I'll tan your hide for you, Mr. Smedley," she replied as she tucked her pert breasts inside the top of the one-piece outfit. With slender fingers she lovingly drew the zipper that ran from crotch to neck.
Mrs. Knight was fastening the button at her collar when a cell phone purred to life in Smedley's vest. He popped it open as he drove.
"Smedley," he announced. "We've just left Harrods. We'll be there momentarily." He paused to listen. "Are you certain just the young one?"
He made a face at the response. Without a goodbye, he clicked the phone shut and slipped it back in his pocket.
"Philliston says they're on the move," Smedley said, mild irritation in his voice. "Warned me that they're better than anything we've seen before."
"Do you believe it?" Mrs. Knight asked.
"Better than anything I've seen?" Smedley scoffed. "After what I just saw in my mirror? Doubtful, Mrs. Knight. Very, very doubtful."
The lemon-yellow Bentley continued up the road to Buckingham Palace.
"SO, DID YOU DO the queen of England or what?" Remo asked as they marched out of Buckingham Palace.
Chiun's brow was dark, his gaze dead ahead. "You have done it again," the Master of Sinanju said in hot reply. "I continue to hope. I pray to my ancestors that each last time will be the last time. Yet you have managed to take a moment of great importance to your House and to me-yes, forgive me, Remo, for having selfish feelings this one time-and turn it into something embarrassing."
"Not that I need to defend myself here, but she did try to jab me in the head with a poison pin."
"Yes, that was not permitted," Chiun admitted grudgingly. "What passes for royalty these days. I shudder to think what is in line to follow her."
"So did you?" Remo pressed as they walked.
"Did I what?"
"You. The queen. She had that picture of you. That was you, wasn't it?" He held up his hands, warding off the foul look his teacher shot him. "Hey, not a problem here. I'm open-minded. Maybe she was a looker back in her day. Which, if she's like most Englishwomen, was the twenty-four hours just after her eighteenth birthday and just before the Crooked Tooth Express plowed full-steam ugly into her mush."
Chiun would not be drawn in. Outside, they scaled the wall and hopped to the ground. As soon as their feet touched the sidewalk, they were walking briskly down the street.
Remo was no longer surprised by the lack of guards or palace personnel. The pedestrians in whose midst the two men suddenly appeared seemed unfazed. None was aware that the two Masters of Sidanju had come from the palace grounds.
"I expect so little from you, Remo," Chiun said as they strolled along. "Is it too much to ask you to behave yourself at least in front of royalty?"
"As soon as royalty starts behaving better, I will. It's all a joke anyway. They build places this big just to distract the people on the other side of the gate. If they keep the commoners busy oohing and ahhing, maybe they won't realize the people inside are about as fit to rule as the winner of last year's Twit of the Year Contest."
"Your powers of perception are great, O insightful one," Chiun droned. "Do you think all of the Masters of Sinanju who have come before you did not know that? Do you think I do not know that? Of course that is so. But as long as they continue to rule, we will go to them. For no matter what nobility you place in the man who collects the garbage, he will never have the means to retain our services."
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