The explosion of pain in his brain sent him crashing backward, stumbling and crawling blindly. When his vision cleared Corporal Price lay on his stomach.
Through the dense thicket, men in smart blue uniforms with gold shoulder boards and light blue piping advanced purposefully, faces hard and muskets pointed at him. Some wielded the dreaded Sharps carbine.
"You-you men be from the First Massachusetts?" he asked, gulping.
Before an answer could come, a familiar voice called, "Price! Call out, man!"
"Colonel Hazard!" Price screamed. "It's them Yank devils!"
"'What?"
"The infernal Yankees! They've a-come early! And they're firing lead ball!"
A volley of Minie balls converged on Corporal Price's head, shattering his thick skull like a ceramic bowl.
And the Second Battle of the Crater was on.
HISTORY WOULD DULY RECORD that the Sixth Virginia Recreational Foot fell defending its ancestral territory from a low-down Northern incursion. Of the thirty-five men in the regiment, all but eleven were lost that day, including Colonel Lester "Rip" Hazard, who would be buried on the spot where he died with the true words "The Hope of Virginia" inscribed on his marble headstone.
Most of the defenders were shot dead in their tents as they stirred at the first dull sounds of skirmish.
Colonel Hazard perished giving a good account of himself after stumbling upon the ruined body of Corporal Adam Price. He had his Spencer repeater up to his shoulder when the Minie balls began arriving in the general vicinity of his head and rib cage, which were promptly shot to kindling. Hazard got off four consecutive point-blank shots before succumbing to his wounds.
History did not record that he fired blanks. Some truths are too painful to endure.
THE NEXT MORNING the ragged survivors of the Sixth Virginia Recreational Foot lay in wait along the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike outside Petersburg, Virginia, for the Forty-fourth Rhode Island Weekend Artillery.
When the Forty-fourth Rhode Island obligingly came roaring up the road in their chartered buses, pickup trucks bearing Virginia license plates rolled out of concealment, blocking their path.
Elements of the Forty-fourth Rhode Island stepped out of their vehicles in curiosity and confusion. They saw familiar gray uniforms pop up from behind the barricade. Those without rifles in hand reached instinctively for them. Old hatreds die hard.
The Forty-fourth Rhode Island were cut down to the last man by the Sixth Virginia Foot, who this time were not firing blanks.
This engagement was dubbed by the victors the Battle of Redressment and by the losers the Massacre at Colonial Heights.
By the time the motorcycles of the First Mass Cavalry happened along an hour later, the Virginia National Guard had been called out and everyone was packing live ammunition.
The Second American Civil War had commenced. And no one suspected it was only prologue to a wider conflict.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he was on strike.
"No results, no work," he said into the telephone receiver, and promptly hung up. The phone immediately began ringing.
Remo let it ring. As far as he was concerned, it could ring forever and ever.
A squeaky voice called from the floor above. "Why does that noisy device continue to vex us?" the voice asked in a querulous tone.
"It's only Smith," Remo called back.
"He has work?" the squeaky voice demanded.
"Who cares? I'm on strike."
Faster than seemed possible, a wispy figure appeared in the doorway of Remo's sparsely furnished bedroom. "You have struck Smith?" asked Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, in hazel-eyed horror.
"No," Remo explained patiently, "I've gone on strike against Smith."
Chiun's almond eyes narrowed to slits. "Explain these white words I cannot fathoms."
"Smitty's been stalling. He promised months ago to track down my parents. So far, all I get are lame excuses. He needs motivation. So I'm striking until I get what I want."
"You will do no work?"
Remo folded his bare arms defiantly as the telephone continued to ring. He wore a white T-shirt and tan chinos. "I'm not budging."
"I must find out what Emperor Smith requires of us."
"Be my guest," said Remo, unfolding his arms and plugging his ears with his forefingers. "I just don't want to hear it."
"And you will not," said Chiun, reaching for the telephone. Suddenly he pivoted. A curved fingernail nearly as long as the finger backing it licked out, seeming to brush Remo's forehead slightly.
Remo got his ears unplugged before the paralyzing electricity of the Master of Sinanju's touch shut down his nervous system.
Remo stood frozen while Chiun answered the telephone, an expression of dull shock on his strong, highcheekboned face. His deep-set dark brown eyes seemed to say "I can't believe I fell for that."
Ignoring him, Chiun spoke into the receiver. "Hail, Emperor Smith, dispenser of gold and welcome assignments. The Master of Sinanju awaits your bidding."
"We have a problem, Master Chiun," said Dr. Harold W Smith in a voice that sounded the way lemon-scented dishwashing detergent smells.
"Speak, O understanding one."
"Something terrible is going on in Virginia," Smith said breathlessly. "A skirmish has broken out between Civil War reenactors"
"These reactionaries are doomed."
"Reenactors, not reactionaries."
Chiun wrinkled up his bald head. "I do not know this word."
"Reenactors are people who dress up in the costumes and uniforms of the American Civil War and recreate the major battles."
"They fight a war that has already been decided?"
"They don't use real bullets."
Chiun's forehead puckered. "Then what is the purpose of fighting? For without death, no war can ever be decided."
"It's purely ceremonial," said Smith. "Please listen carefully. It appears a Union regiment bushwhacked a Southern regiment, decimating the latter."
"If they were not dispensing death, why does this matter?"
"This time the Northern shots were real. The survivors in turn ambushed another Union regiment, annihilating them to the last man. When the Virginia National Guard was called in to put down the disturbance, they took the side of the Southern regiment and captured another Northern regiment."
"Then the rebellious ones have won?"
"Not yet. If we don't get to the bottom of this, we may have a second Civil War on our hands. Master Chiun, we must head off further violence."
Chiun shook his aged head. "It is too late."
"What do you mean?"
"Assassins head off wars before they start, not after. You have called us too late, Smith."
"I called as soon as word reached me. But Remo refused to accept my call."
Chiun made a dismissive hand motion that was lost on Smith. "It does not matter. It was too late even then. For once men in uniform begin to fight, they cannot be stopped until one army surrenders to the other. It is a soldier thing."
Smith's voice grew firm. "Master Chiun, I have reports of other reenactors mobilizing in other states. Volunteers are coming out of the woodwork and appear to be converging on a Civil War battlefield at Petersburg, Virginia. There is talk of the Rhode Island National Guard descending upon Virginia to avenge the dead reenactors, some of whom belonged to the Rhode Island National Guard unit."
"It is possible something can be done," Chiun mused, eyeing Remo dubiously.
"Yes?"
"If the general behind this calamity can be found and separated from his head, it may be his army will melt in fear before the swift hand of Sinanju."
"But we don't know that any general is behind this. These men are not true soldiers. They are ordinary citizens who perform on national holidays. It makes no sense."
"It is typically American," said Chiun vaguely. "Would you like to speak with Remo?"
"Er, he is not speaking to me."<
br />
"You have not approached him in the proper manner," said Chiun, lifting the receiver to one of Remo's unprotected ears. "You may speak freely now that my pupil's undivided attention is focused on your every syllable."
"Remo, I desperately need your help," Smith said.
Remo stood unmoving as Smith spoke.
"I have been diligently seeking answers to your questions, but you must realize it is difficult. You were orphaned as an infant. There is no backtrail to your parents except the name found on the note on the basket-Remo Williams. Williams, as I have told you a thousand times, is one of the most common surnames in the Western world. Without more to go on, I am at an impasse."
Remo said nothing.
"Remo, are you listening?"
"His wax-laden ears have absorbed your every word, Emperor," Chiun assured Smith.
"And what is his reaction?" Smith asked doubtfully.
"He makes no protest," Chiun said blandly.
"Does that mean what I think it means?" Smith ventured.
"Since you are emperor over this divided land, and your every word law, can your surmises fail to achieve equal perfection?" asked Chiun, and hung up.
Standing before his pupil, Chiun looked up. He was a full foot shorter than his pupil, who stood about six feet tall. The Master of Sinanju was a frail wraith of a man with a mummylike face resembling papyrus that might have soaked up the wrinkles of the passing centuries. He looked old, very old. But there was a wise humor in his eyes that belied the fact that he had been born near the end of the previous century and suggested an inner vitality that would carry him into the next. The years had robbed him of his hair, leaving only a tendril clinging to his tiny chin and a cloudy puff over each ear. The kimono sheathing his frailseeming body was black and trimmed in scarlet.
"If you wish to continue on strike," he said pleasantly, "I will be happy to leave you in this stricken state."
Remo stood without reacting. A tendril of perspiration trickled out from under his scalp.
"Or," continued Chiun, "I can release you from this state, and you may be allowed to accompany me as my official translator and gofer."
Remo had no reaction.
"I will give you one opportunity to reply. If your reply is not to my liking, I will return you to this unfortunate state and be on my way."
The fingernail touched Remo in the exact center of his forehead, and he snapped alert once more.
"I am not doing any more assignments, Smitty!" Remo barked.
"It is too late," Chiun said lightly. "For I have hung up the telephone, and we are late for our flight to Virginland."
Remo hesitated, one eye on the fingernail hovering just before his chin. The other flicked to the open door, and he calculated his chances of getting out of the room before the Master of Sinanju, who had taught him everything he knew of value, could react. Remo decided his chances were about equal to his sprouting wings.
"I want proof of Smith's good faith before day's end," said Remo.
"And I wish to see evidence that the wisdom I have poured into your thick white head has not leaked out through some hitherto unsuspected hole. Never in the past would you have succumbed to my paralyzing stroke so easily, Remo. For shame. Your head is full of useless dreams and longings, and they have befogged your brain to the point of its former roundeyed denseness. Next you will be consuming burned cow patties once more. O, that I lived to see you sink to this low state," Chiun moaned, throwing back his head and resting the back of an ivory hand against his smooth forehead. He held that pose until Remo spoke again.
"Knock it off. This is important to me."
"Yes, of course. Your roots. You must find your, roots. O, that you had only been born a tree so that they would always be at your unmoving feet, where you could admire them. But you were born a man. You have no roots. You have feet." Chiun looked down at Remo's feet, which were encased in handmade Italian loafers. "Large, ugly, club knobs, but still recognizable as feet. You have no roots. Have I not told you so a thousand times?"
"Somebody gave birth to me," said Remo.
"Possibly," Chiun said thinly
"Someone else fathered me."
"This, too, is within the realm of the possible," admitted Chiun.
"I want to find out who they are and why they left me on that orphanage doorstep."
"Why do you need to know this trivia? Is is not enough to know that you were abandoned? If you had hitched a ride in an automobile and the driver abruptly stopped to leave you by the side of the road, would you dedicate your adult life to discovering this cretin's life story?"
"It's not the same thing."
"But it is. Those who brought you into the world cast you away like a broken toy. Is there not a more ungrateful and callous act imaginable?"
"I need to know why. Everything that's happened to me in life happened because of it. If I had not grown up in an orphanage, I probably wouldn't have ended up a cop or joined the Marines and gone to Nam. Without Nam, I wouldn't have met MacCleary, who fingered me so Smith could frame me for that killing. Because I was an orphan and had no family, Smith figured I was the perfect candidate for CURE. Think how my life would have gone if I'd never met Smith."
"You would never have met me." And because the bond between them was strong, the Master of Sinanju looked up into his pupil's angry face with expectant eyes.
Remo hesitated. "All I wanted was a normal life."
"Instead, you got an extraordinary life. No white person has ever been so blessed as you. Since the first Master emerged from the caves of mist, only my ancestors were considered worthy of learning the art of Sinanju, the sun source of all fighting arts, and only the best of them. Only Koreans, the most perfect creatures to tread the earth. No whites. Until you. And you are not happy."
"I never wanted to be an assassin."
In the act of pirouetting about the room, Chiun abruptly whirled to fix his pupil with triumphant eyes.
"And you are not!" he crowed. "You are a Sinanju assassin. The finest of this era or any other."
"I don't want to be an assassin anymore. I want to find myself."
"You do not need to find yourself, Remo Williams. Now that you have been discovered by Sinanju."
"You make it sound like I'm some new specimen."
"You are a white Sinanju Master. My ancestors would be proud to know that I have taken a lowly white and raised him up to near-Koreanhood." Chiun caught himself. "After they finished castigating me for squandering my talents on so pointless a task. But times were hard, there were no suitable clients in this modern world and I had to make do with the meager offers that came to me. I have taken a white foundling and made him a Master of Sinanju. O, wonderful me."
"Stuff it. I'm through with CURE. I don't want to be an assassin or a counterassassin."
"Do not speak that horrid white word in my presence."
"I'm finding myself. After that, I'll take what comes."
Chiun fixed Remo with one steely eye. "You have been taking what came to you all your life. Why show initiative now?"
Remo said nothing.
"You will come with me to the Province of Virgins?"
"Virginia," corrected Remo.
"Good. It is settled."
"Wait a minute! I didn't promise anything. I'm on strike. Besides, it's Memorial Day. A national holiday."
This time Remo actually saw the Master of Sinanju's fingernail arrow toward his forehead. He stepped forward as if to offer himself to the paralyzing nail, then slipped down and out of the way so elegantly the Master of Sinanju had to catch himself before he impaled the white-painted wall of Remo's bedroom.
Recovering, Chiun took his wrists in his hands and let the wide sleeves of his kimono close over them. A tinge of pride suffused his aged mummy face.
"Perhaps not all of my training has been a waste after all," he murmured with a hint of fatherly pride.
ON THE FLIGHT, Chiun was saying, "Listen well. We go to put down a rebellion. It
is a difficult thing, being different than a war between nations."
"I don't think a new civil war is breaking out."
The plane sat at the gate at Boston's Logan Airport. Passengers were still coming on board. A potbellied man wearing the full sideburns and blue uniform of the Union Army was boarding.
A stewardess stopped him. "Sir, you'll have to check that pistol." She pointed to his gun-belt holster.
"It is only a replica Dragoon," said the man in an exaggerated New England twang that Remo had never heard spoken on the street-only by comedians playing broad-dialect New Englanders. "It's a blackpowder weapon. Perfectly legal."
"Nevertheless, it constitutes a firearm, and I'll have ask you to check it."
Reluctantly the faux Union soldier surrendered his pistol, gun belt and all. Glum-faced, he made his way down the narrow aisle to take a seat across from Remo and Chiun, gold buttons straining to contain his paunch.
"Looks like another would-be combatant," Remo undertoned.
"Why does he wear the uniform of Napoleon III?" asked Chiun.
"Huh?"
"That uniform. French soldiers who followed Napoleon III wore such uniforms, according to the scrolls of my ancestors."
"Little Father, that's a Union Civil War uniform."
"It is French."
"Maybe it looks French. But I know an authentic Union uniform when I see it. See the blue piping? That means he's infantry."
"If that man is flying to Virginland to fight a war that his people long ago won, he is infantile, not infantry."
"Whatever," said Remo.
The cabin door was secured and turbines began to spool up. Conversation became difficult. They sat in silence as the plane lumbered to the runway, picked up speed and vaulted into the sky over Boston.
When the 727 had leveled out and was hurtling southward, Chiun resumed his lecture. "A war between nations is always about treasure."
"Treasure?"
"Yes. Sometimes it is a treasure one emperor wishes to wrest from the other. Now, this treasure need not be in gold or jewels or wealth. Helen of Troy was a treasure, even if she was but a white Greekling with a crooked nose."
"Helen of Troy had a crooked nose?"
Chiun nodded. "Today it is called a deviated septum. Paris did not know. He would have spent the rest of his days enduring her insufferable snoring."
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