"Dr. Smith."
Someone was calling him. The words scarcely registered.
The Master of Sinanju was gone. The most awesome force to walk the face of the earth. Dead. "Dr. Smith!"
Smith turned numbly to the sound. Mark Howard stood a few yards away, an excited expression an his face. The young man seemed unaffected by the death of Chiun.
Didn't he know? Didn't he care?
Smith cared. Professional detachment be damned. Chiun deserved better. More than the fact that he was part of CURE's inner circle, the old man had dedicated his life to this village. His end should not have come this way, along with the death of his beloved Sinanju.
Howard had turned away from Smith, away from Chiun's frail body. He was standing next to a charred and smoking building. Though blackened from fire, the wall was still intact. Mark raised a tentative hand to the wall.
Smith couldn't begin to guess what the young man was doing. Nor did he care. CURE had lost one of its own. This trip had been to warn Chiun and Remo of the danger. An arduous journey ended in bitter failure.
Smith's eyes burned.
Howard glanced back once at Smith, a baffled expression on his broad face. And then to Smith's shock, the young man stepped directly through the charred wall, disappearing through the solid wood like a wisp of winter chimney smoke.
KIM JONG IL WAS HIDING out in his basement bunker when he heard the news.
General Kye Pun of the People's Bureau of Revolutionary Struggle had personally come down to tell him. The general's bodyguard, Shan Duk, stood just inside the door. The premier sat in an overstuffed beanbag chair before his big-screen television, a bucket of half-eaten popcorn on his lap.
"What are we, the goddamn hijacked-plane capital of the world now?" the Korean leader demanded angrily, spitting out an unpopped kernel. It pinged off the TV screen. "Where's this one from?"
"Iraq," replied the general. "And it is not hijacked. It has been put at the disposal of a-" he read from a scrap of paper in his hand "'-a friend of the head of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council."' He looked up from the paper. "They radioed ahead."
The premier's eyes narrowed. "He's got friends like I've got friends. Meaning he's got zip. Can only mean that one guy's on that plane, and he's not the friendly type, either." Very carefully he put down his popcorn bucket. "I hope I backed the right pony in this race," the premier said warily. He looked up at the inscrutable face of Kye Pun. "Let's get this show on the road."
Wiping buttery salt on his knees, Kim Jong II struggled up out of his beanbag.
BENSON DILKEs felt uneasy.
Back in his day, when he was still plying his trade, before cozy retirement in Africa, uneasiness was always the leading edge of failure. A prudent man, Dilkes generally skipped town at the first sign of uneasiness. But this situation afforded no such luxury.
For the first time in his professional career, Benson Dilkes was stuck.
Still, as he climbed the basement stairs of the grand Sinanju treasure house, there were no self-recriminations. He had made the only decision he could. Nuihc had given him no other options.
It was ironic. That day a week ago, when the renegade Master of Sinanju had arrived unannounced at Dilkes's Florida apartment, had actually offered hope. The first Dilkes had had for many months.
For months, long before Nuihc's arrival, Dilkes was certain he was a dead man. He alone seemed to know the truth behind this Sinanju Time of Succession. Some in his profession saw it as an honor, while others saw it as a duty. Dilkes saw it for what it was: clearing house.
They were cagey, these Sinanju assassins. They hadn't lasted thousands of years by being stupid. They might dress it up with pretty words for kings and killers alike, but it was clear precisely what they were doing with all this.
Removing the competition.
There was no opting out of the ritual. Once a contestant was "lucky" enough to be chosen to participate, he was locked in. It was diabolically clever, really. Prove your mettle to the rulers of a nation by murdering that nation's best assassin. See? We're the best. But-oh, no-now you no longer have your greatest national assassin. Not a problem. Sinanju is always available for your convenience. For a reasonable fee, of course.
It was ruthless and brilliant and something Uiat Benson Dilkes himself might have come up with. That was the worst thing about all this. In spite of everything, he still felt such accursed admiration for these killers from the East.
At least for the true Masters of Sinanju. He had no such appreciation for the madman he'd thrown in with.
He found Nuihc sitting in a plain back room in the House of Many Woods. Unlike the rest of the Master of Sinanju's home, there was no treasure jammed to the rafters here. Just a simple wooden floor, a reed mat and a few unlit candles.
The blond-haired man was in the room with Nuihc. He stood in the corner, his blue eyes wide. He was a shadow of a man. Although his mouth opened and closed, no words came out.
The scrawny white man who babbled soundlessly night and day was an obvious lunatic. But Nuihc was just as crazy. Worse. Dilkes hadn't seen it right away. It had come out in dribs and drabs during their days together. Nuihc's insanity was quieter and thus, to Dilkes, more frightening.
"The furnace is fine, Master," Dilkes announced. He hated that word now. It sounded so wrong on his tongue.
Nuihc was sitting on the woven mat in the center of the room. "Really?" he said. "I felt ... something." The words came out a lazy drawl.
Why, Dilkes wondered for the hundredth time, was this native Korean sounding more and more as if he'd been born and bred on some rural Appalachian dirt farm?
The accent had slipped out a few times during their days together. The Southern twang was as thick as a bowl of hominy grits. When Rebecca Dalton had phoned with news of the death of the American Master of Sinanju three days before, the Southern accent had blossomed full. Gone was the precise use of language of a cultured Korean master assassin. Nuihc now sounded as though he should be calling Saturday-night square dances in Possum Hollow.
Benson Dilkes, native Virginian, knew the accent wasn't a put-on. But he couldn't figure out why it was coming out of Nuihc's mouth. Or why the lips of the blond man in the corner of the room now always seemed to move in perfect time with the words spoken by Nuihc. Dilkes felt that he was stuck in the middle of some demented ventriloquist act.
"I can check the furnace again," Dilkes offered.
"No," Nuihc said. He closed his eyes, a blissful expression settling on his flat face. "It's more than just the furnace. I can feel it now. A great army comes."
"I don't hear anything."
"Of course you don't. You ain't Nuihc the wise, Nuihc the great, Nuihc the sees-all-and-tells-all." And at this, the Korean giggled insanely. Out of the corner of his eye, Dilkes saw the blond-haired man was laughing, as well. Mouth hanging open wide with demented glee, not a single sound passing parted lips.
"It's Kim Jong Il," Nuihc explained. "Come to welcome us to the neighborhood. I promised him power and glory in exchange for protection. Dang fool thinks he can give it to me with tanks. Beats having to kill him, I expect. And I could do it, too, 'cause I'm Nuihc the killer. Killer of men, killer of hopes and dreams. Killer of childhood. Don't make a whole lot of difference either way to me."
The blond man found this hysterically funny. Over in the corner, he laughed his silent laugh even as Nuihc threw back his own head, clutching his belly as he cackled crazily.
"If the North Korean army is advancing on us, I should go tell the men," Dilkes said, voice loud over the laughter.
Nuihc waved a hand. "No," he said, his Southern accent strong. "Leave them where they are. They're my Army of Death. They're the fellers what are gonna help me rule the world. I give 'em a little training, see, and then I send 'em back to wherever they come from. Nothing can stop them. That's what I always wanted, you know. To rule the world. I couldn't be happy just being a plain old Master of Sinanju or a daddy. I always had on
e eye on the whole big world."
This was intolerable. He was getting worse by the minute. Talking gibberish, laughing insanely.
For Dilkes enough was enough. Nuihc had gotten them all into this country. As a white American in Communist North Korea, Dilkes thought himself trapped. No more. He was getting out somehow. He was leaving this crazy man to his plots of world domination. Benson Dilkes was going back to Africa. Back to his prize roses and his happy retirement. Let them come and get him if they wanted. Nuihc, the current Reigning Master. Dilkes didn't care. He wasn't going to play this insane game any longer.
"If the premier is sending men, maybe they can help find the old Master of Sinanju," Dilkes said, beginning to back slowly from the room. "They know the terrain, and he hasn't been seen since he ran from the village three days ago."
"He's dead," Nuihc insisted firmly. "This place meant everything to him. It made him nuts to see it in ruins. I felt his insanity." He hugged himself, like cuddling up in a warm blanket. "He couldn't live with it."
Dilkes didn't know what Nuihc was talking about now. Someone seeing Sinanju in ruins. More crazy talk.
"As you say, Master," Dilkes smiled. "If there's nothing more, I'll go check on the men."
Nuihc didn't hear. He had already lost interest in Benson Dilkes. He had turned full attention on the blond man. A human plaything, Nuihc lifted one arm, and the blond did the same. They each mirrored the movements of the other perfectly. The two of them giggled at each other.
"Like father, like son." Nuihc laughed.
At the door Benson Dilkes shook his head. He quietly departed the room on the disturbing image of mirrored lunatics' laughter.
"MARK!" Smith gasped.
The CURE director couldn't believe his eyes. He had seen much that was strange in his time, but little could compete with the extraordinary sight of his assistant stepping straight through a solid wall.
When Smith called, Mark Howard returned. The young man appeared like a phantom through the side of the burned-out building. He wore a nervous smile. "Abracadabra," Mark said.
"How did you do that?" Smith demanded.
"Easy," Mark replied. "The wall's not really there." He waved around the decimated village. "None of them are. You mean you can't see it?" He was optimistic, but seemed resigned to the fact that he alone could see the truth.
Smith still sat on the ground near the Master of Sinanju's body. He looked up the main road of Sinanju.
"I see buildings burned. Some right to the ground."
Howard shook his head. "It's just a projection, Dr. Smith. The buildings I see are still in one piece. They're a little bit behind the fake walls. From what I can tell, the village looks fine. It's like he's superimposing an image of destruction over the whole place."
Smith knew precisely who Howard meant. He also allowed a fresh sliver of hope to enter his grieving heart.
"What of-what of the villagers?" he asked. He kept his eyes trained on Mark, not daring to look down at Chiun.
The answer sent Smith's tired old heart soaring. "That's definitely not Chiun," Mark insisted. "It's not anyone. None of these bodies are real."
The questioning singsong that rang loud at Howard's back startled both the assistant CURE director and Harold Smith.
"Are you certain?" demanded a squeaky voice. Howard wheeled.
The Master of Sinanju stood like a statue carved from stone at the very edge of the village square. His hands were tucked inside his voluminous kimono sleeves. With suspicious slits he looked across the ruins of Sinanju. His eyes lingered on the corpse that wore his face.
"Master Chiun!" Smith cried, climbing quickly to his feet. As he hurried over to meet the old Korean, he dried the cold tears from his face.
Chiun ignored Smith. "The bodies of my people," he snapped at Howard. "Are they real or not?"
"No," Mark Howard replied. "They're just illusions. Like this wall." To prove his point he put his hand against the wall. It disappeared up to the forearm.
Eyes widening in surprise, the old Korean pressed a wrinkled hand to the wall. It felt solid to his touch. He could feel the rough surface of the charred wood. But it seemed too perfect, felt too much like a burned house. Just like the smell of smoke that still lingered in the cold air. All too real. He was ashamed to not have noticed it before. Experience should have made him suspicious. In the past he had been tricked several times by Jeremiah Purcell's more-real-than-real illusions.
"The Dutchman," Chiun snarled, his hand hopping from the false wall.
"He's here," Smith insisted. "That's why we came. To warn you. Mark says-"
"Enough!" Chiun snapped impatiently, cutting Smith off. "What day is this?"
Smith was surprised by the question. The Master of Sinanju kept time better than an atomic clock. "It's Friday," Smith replied.
"Three days," Chiun said to himself. To Smith he asked sharply, "Where is Remo?"
"We don't know," the CURE director replied. "He never returned from Russia. I believe he may have resumed the Time of Succession schedule. I have gotten a few odd reports from some countries in the Middle East. But he has not gotten in touch with me in days. You haven't spoken with him?"
Chiun shook his head. "No," he said, his nose turned into the air like a bloodhound on a scent. "But he is near."
Howard and Smith exchanged glances. Smith seemed to easily accept the old man's words. Mark was going to ask how Chiun could possibly know Remo was nearby, but then he remembered he was standing in the middle of a madman's three-dimensional delusion that had been conjured out of thin air. He decided that anything was possible.
"He has preceded the tanks here," Chiun commented.
"Tanks?" Smith asked.
Chiun didn't elaborate. "Emperor, take your prince and flee this place," the old man warned gravely. "In the coming battle I cannot guarantee your safety."
"We cannot go," Smith insisted. "You don't understand."
"Then stay," Chiun snapped impatiently. "But the risk is yours."
Turning on his heel, the Master of Sinanju hurried through the village square. Brow sinking in frustration, Smith raced to catch up.
"Wait, Master Chiun," Smith called.
Up ahead the Master of Sinanju was still not immune to the illusions. His kimono skirts were hiked up as he darted over and around seemingly solid bodies.
Only Mark Howard was able to see reality beyond the illusion. On some level he realized that it was due to the psychic connection he'd had with the Dutchman more than a year before. Somehow the mind tricks didn't work on him. Rather than go around, the assistant CURE director waded straight through the bodies, feet vanishing ankle deep in torsos before drifting ghostlike out the far side.
"Some of these faces aren't Korean," Howard commented as they hurried through the heart of the village.
Smith had noticed the same thing. The farther along they went, the more non-Korean faces there were.
"I believe they are his victims," Smith commented tightly. "I- My God," he gasped, stopping dead. Three of the corpses that had been conjured from the depths of the Dutchman's twisted mind wore faces familiar to the CURE director. Three United States senators who had been murdered thirty years before were lying with the rest.
Smith was shocked silent. The murders of the men had been tangled up in the first assignment he had ever sent Remo on as CURE's enforcement arm. Smith had no idea that they had somehow been connected to Jeremiah Purcell.
"He couldn't have been more than a boy when these murders took place," Smith whispered.
He looked back over his shoulder, across the sea of faces. There seemed more now. Bodies as far as the eye could see. As Smith watched, more bodies grew atop the piles. Mountains of corpses rising up, pasty death faces illuminated in the weird purple light of the growing dawn.
"What's wrong, Dr. Smith?" Howard asked. "His mind is unraveling. He is remembering all of his victims. All the faces of the dead that have been tormenting him throughout the years."
The man and woman were both in their late thirties. The man was dressed in simple blue jeans and plaid work shirt. The woman wore a blue apron and a worn but clean dress. She had blond hair like spun silk. The skin of both husband and wife was blistered black from third-degree burns.
"Who are they?" Mark asked.
"I would guess Purcell's parents," the CURE director replied, his thin lips pursed. "He told Remo and Chiun years ago that he had murdered them. They were his first victims. I believe we have come to the end of the line."
His worried eyes were directed ahead.
The main road ended where the long walkway to Chiun's house began. The area was free of phantom corpses. Smith saw that a familiar figure had joined the Master of Sinanju on the well-trampled footpath.
For the first instant that he saw Remo, the CURE director felt a flash of quick relief. That relief disappeared as quickly as it had come.
It was Chiun's reaction that sent up warning flares for Harold Smith.
The old Korean gave a deep, subservient bow, the likes of which Masters of Sinanju granted no mere mortals. Eyes downcast, he shuffled a few obsequious steps backward.
Howard stopped at Smith's side. "It's Remo," he said.
Smith shot a hard look at Mark Howard. "If you value both our lives, do not say anything to him." Howard shook his head as he studied the new arrival. There wasn't the same flickering lack of substance he had seen in the buildings and bodies.
"Don't worry, Dr. Smith. That's really Remo." The CURE director was studying the Master of Sinanju.
The old man's face was now upturned, but he maintained a subservient semibow. Remo had taken a posture of arrogance, hands planted on his hips, as he looked up at the House of Many Woods. He seemed to be soaking up his teacher's groveling as if it were his due.
Smith shook his head ominously.
"He is real," the CURE director said darkly. When he glanced at his assistant, the dread was reflected deep in his gray eyes. "But I fear he is not Remo."
Chapter 33
The Master of Sinanju knew to fear the instant he saw Remo's eyes. Within the dark depths of the deep-set brown orbs were twin pinpricks of red-ancient burning coals compressed into a tiny supernova of raw power and fury.
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