The Head Men td-31

by Warren Murphy

"That is true," Chiun said. "But has the death of one emperor ever meant that there would be no more? There is always someone willing to take that position in the world. And it is the least of all positions. Most attain it by entering the world from the correct womb. And what baby ever chose his womb or made an effort to be born ? Yet that is how most emperors are made. It is the least position, while appearing to be the most."

  Thus spoke Chiun on that spring night in Washington, D.C. Thus spoke the Master of Sinanju.

  51

  But his pupil was not quite as philosophical about the comings and goings of world rulers.

  "I like this President, Chiun. I'm going to save him. Besides, I've seen the Vice President."

  52

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The knife came very slowly. So did the man behind it. He jumped from a shiny black Buick LeSabre, his black shiny paratrooper boots clomping on the sidewalk.

  "Whitey, you dies," he bellowed. He wore a towel around his head with a cheap orange glass jewel in the middle. "Die fo' Allah."

  He was a big man, at least six feet four and 250 pounds, his face glowering with flaring nostrils.

  "I'm busy," Remo said. And he was. They had left the White House through the front gate and been followed and Chiun was in the middle of explaining the politics of assassination, that there were many reasons for it, and only rarely did assassinations descend to the mindlessness of hate or revenge. Hate was to performance of a function as a boil on the heel was to the long jump. It was at best a distraction and, at worst, a crucial impediment.

  And in the midst of this while Remo was trying to piece together the connection between an explosion in Sun Valley, Utah, and the presidential concern for assassination, some guy with a

  53

  knife disturbed him by blocking the street in front of them.

  "This ain' no niggah muggin'," snarled the man. "This a Muslim holy war o' righteousness."

  "I'm very busy," said Remo.

  "I Arab. I gots Arab name. Name Hamis Al Boreen. That mean savior of his people."

  "That means nothing," said Chiun to Remo. Chiun knew Arabic and had once explained to Remo that the western word assassin came from Arabic, from the word hashish which assassins were supposed to use to give themselves courage. "Hashishan" had become "assassin." They were good, but not great, assassins. Often they did sloppy work. They killed unnecessarily and, what was anathema to Chiun, they had no qualms about killing children to obtain their ends. "That is not an Arab name," said Chiun.

  "I Hamis Al Boreen," repeated the man. He raised his curved knife. He plunged his curved knife toward Remo's chest. Remo walked past the outside of the arm, so the lumbering oaf's thrust carried him by Remo and Chiun. An observer would think the man had merely stumbled through them, but no one could attack anything on the outside of his arm moving past him.

  "There are two kinds of assassination. One is the vicious insane blood murder for revenge that is becoming increasingly common in your country. It is not even assassination. It is just killing. The other is the elegant, perfect function of a civilization at its peak, honoring its craftsmen. These are assassinations paid for in advance."

  "Which one does the President have to fear?" Remo asked.

  54

  "AH of them," said Chiun. "But there is a particular one coming to him and he does not see it."

  The big man with the towel imitation of a turban and the imitation Arab name lifted his bulk back up to standing balance. Three others with towels also wrapped around the heads, one still carrying a Sears' white sale label, came to him from cars farther down the street. Obviously the first man was supposed to have stopped Remo and Chiun, diverting their attention, while the other three made the real attack. Now all four were running down the block after Remo and Chiun.

  "Kill in de name of de all merciful and mighty," screamed the man as the four charged. They were in the worst positions to attack, Remo knew. The best stroke was a balanced stroke. It had more power. Running at something and swinging at it simultaneously appeared to be more powerful, but it was only an illusion. Power was balance and all four were off balance and running. The three helpers had machetes.

  "There has been an example set for this emperor of yours," Chiun said.

  "How did you know that, Little Father?"

  "If one uses one's head and sees and hears instead of talking back, one can easily deduce there was a threat that your President failed to take seriously. But Emperor Smith did take it seriously and wanted the President to take it seriously, so he sent us. And we convinced him."

  "But how did you know it's one threat? One particular threat?"

  "Not only is it just one threat but the example was in your Sun Valley of Utah," said Chiun with not a little pride.

  "How do you get to that, Little Father?"

  55

  "And they put you in charge?" sighed Chiun.

  The attack by the four men was met with short sidestepping and rolling by as though Remo and Chiun were letting a dark rushing subway crowd push by them. This glancing collision accompanied screams about the greatness of God by the four attackers and how they were going to wash the streets with the blood of the invader infidels.

  One of the attackers lost his Sears' white sale towel.

  "Dey has dishonored my turban. Dey has dishonored my turban."

  Remo and Chiun stepped over the struggling bodies of the four men.

  "I am in charge, Little Father," Remo said. "How did you know Sun Valley? I mean, why Sun Valley?"

  "The only logical place," said Chiun.

  "You never even heard of Sun Valley," said Remo.

  "Smith told me."

  "In the hotel in Los Angeles, right? What did he say?"

  "He said he was worried about the death that was an example."

  "And then what?"

  "And then he betrayed me by putting you back in charge."

  "Well, what makes you think that it's one person or one group that's the danger?"

  "It is a danger. One danger. It is the one we know about. There may be others. The important thing is that the name of the House of Sinanju does not become associated with your emperor because if another one of your emperors goes, it could shame the name of the House of Sinanju.

  56

  And it would not be our fault because your land is filled with insane bloody lunatics who do not get paid for this work."

  Hamis Al Boreen* and his crew regrouped for another charge.

  "Stop or we cut," he threatened. "You ain' dealin' wif no ordinary niggers now. We all got Islamic names. Onliest people what can stop a Muslim is another Muslim, that who. It written in de holy whatchamacallit."

  "I don't want this President to die, Little Father."

  And Chiun smiled. "We all die, Remo. What you are saying is you do not wish his death to come too soon or too violently."

  "Yeah. You've never listened to our Vice President."

  "You mean if your President dies, his wife does not assume the throne?"

  "No."

  "Nor his children?"

  "No."

  "This Vice President, how is he related to the President?"

  "He's not."

  "He is not his son, this Vice President?"

  "No," said Remo.

  "Then we know who is behind this plot to assassinate, probably getting the work done for free too, so dishonorable is this person. He is the one who wishes your President dead. We will offer your President his head on a pole and be done with this dirty business where people kill others for free."

  The four charged again, this time two coming in from each side. Since it appeared they were

  57

  just going to keep it up and keep it up, Remo put one away with an elbow into the lower rib and another with a kick to the sternum and was about to finish the other two when Chiun said:

  "Don't kill across me, please. It's very rude."

  And with that the long-nailed fingers flicked out like a lizard's t
ongue and a small red spot appeared where an eye had been, the brain behind it jellied through the frontal lobe, and another hand caressed a wildly swinging blade so that its circular motion increased and with a thwuck stopped its motion in the man's own belly. The towel with the orange glass in the middle of it popped off the head. The eyes widened.

  "Jesus Mercy," said Hamis Al Boreen who had discovered his new name while buying a Twenty Mule Team product by mistake when he had wanted cornstarch. After all, who ever heard of eating borax?

  And then there was blood in his mouth and on hig face and he could not stand.

  "Okay, Sun Valley," said Remo. "It's a resort, you know."

  "Will I meet the stars?" asked Chiun who followed American entertainers on television during the day. He had not been watching regularly lately, however, since these programs had, as he said, "abandoned decency." There was too much violence.

  He bent down to pick up the orange-colored glass. He held it up to a street light.

  "Glass," he said disdainfully. "Is nothing real? Why, it is a bad imitation. There is no orange jewelry in the entire world. This fraud is not even an imitation anything." Chiun kicked the corpse. "Violence. Violence in my daytime dramas

  58

  even. This is not a country worth saving. Your worst elements like human waste in one of your cesspools float to the top."

  "You can watch the old shows, Little Father," said Remo, walking back in the night to the White House where they could get a cab to the airport.

  "It's not the same. I know them all. I know the troubles of all the stars. The stars are not the same today. They have sex today. They punch people today. They talk obscenely today. Where are the good and innocent and pure?" asked Chiun, Master of Sinanju and lover of "As the Planet Revolves" which had gone off the air recently after twenty-five years. "Where is pure innocence and decency?"

  "Where is it in life, Little Father?" asked Remo, not without a bit of wisdom.

  "You are standing next to it," said Chiun.

  There was no flight to Sun Valley until the morning, and while waiting at Dulles Airport Remo reflected on how many airports he had waited at for how many nights and how early he had given up the hope of ever having a home where he could rest his head and see the same people in the morning as he had seen the night before.

  Instead he had something else, a oneness with the fullness of the use of his body that only a handful of people had ever had.

  Because Remo was Sinanju, sharer of the sun source of all the martial arts, each like a ray from the original and the most powerful. And yet, there were too many nights in too many airports and he did not even have a home village to send money to. Chiun told him that Sinanju was is home, but that was a spiritual home if any-

  59

  thing. Remo could not regard himself as an Oriental, as a Korean. He was an orphan, which was why Smith had chosen him as CURE'S enforcement arm, and a long time ago made him disappear to become a man who didn't exist, working for an organization that didn't exist.

  Airports were a place where people ate candy bars and drank coffee until morning. Or got drunk until the bars closed. Or read magazines.

  He had an urge to scream in this swept and clean expanse of modern construction, waiting to let out its people to the drone airplanes that came up alongside to swallow them. It was a place for people passing through and it was his home. He was passing through life and was as secure as a man hurling himself off a four-story building. He remembered the morning before and the exercise and how his home was that time and space between birth of the leap and the perfect landing.

  So be it, thought Remo.

  He did not yell out.

  The next day, a local policeman dozed in the heat as he sat on the corner foundation of what had once been a house. There was a hole in the ground where Ernest Walgreen had spent his last days trying to survive an assassination attempt,

  Chiun looked down into the hole and smiled. He beckoned Remo. Remo looked down into the hole. He saw what was left of the foundation in pieces, the shattering that could come only from explosives implanted in the foundation itself.

  "Well?" asked Chiun.

  The guard blinked himself awake. He told the Oriental and the white man they weren't supposed to be there. They told him they would implant that shotgun on his lap into his chest cavity

  60

  if he continued to bother them. He saw the easy way the two moved, assumed they could do him harm, and went back to sleep. He had fifteen years to go before retirement, and he wasn't going to get there any faster by hassling troublemakers.

  "Well ?"Chiun said.

  "Case closed," said Remo.

  "Is there nothing new except deterioration?" bemoaned Chiun. "Such an old thing."

  "My first lesson. One of them," said Remo. "The Hole. And there is even a hole here which is funny because at the end of 'The Hole,' if it's properly done, the hole disappears."

  Remo remembered well. It was a story each Master passed to his successor. It was a technique to do work that had at one time seemed impossible. And it went like this:

  Once, before Sinanju achieved its full power and when Masters often got killed in vain attempts to achieve their ends, there lived a shogun of Japan in a great castle. And one of his lords wished that he be removed so that the lord could become shogun and rule the land of Japan. It was a time even before the Samurai or the code of Bushido. For the Japanese, it was a very long time ago. For Sinanju, some time.

  This shogun had brave followers. They always were by him, in rows of three. Three guarded three guarded three.

  It was like a beehive and the shogun was the queen bee. He was most powerful. He lived in a great castle. Now the Master of Sinanju was not the strongest and it was before the full and total use of the breath was known. He was called The

  61

  Fly, because he would move quickly, then stop, quickly, then stop.

  The Fly knew he could not kill the shogun in his castle. He was, being Sinanju, better than any Japanese fighter at that time. But he was not better than all of them added up. This was many many centuries before Ninji, the Japanese night-fighters who had learned by watching Sinanju and, of course, watching could only reproduce an imitation.

  Now these were especially hard times for Sinanju and there was much hunger in the village. And the people looked to the Master and he could not tell them. "The shogun is too strong and I am too weak." You do not tell these things to babies. You tell starving babies: "Here is your food, loved one."

  So that was what The Fly told them. He took part of the money payment from the lord who wanted the shogun dead and with it he bought food. The rest was to be delivered to the village when he succeeded.

  The Master came to Japan by the sea. And such was the strength of this shogun that it was known right away that an assassin had come to kill him.

  But even if there was not the full power in Sinanju at that early time, there was already the wisdom. And from the beginning, it had been known that for every strength there is a weakness and from every weakness a strength. Iron that will deflect an arrow will drown its wearer by pulling him under the water. Wood that floats crumbles in the hand. The thrown knife leaves its thrower without a weapon.

  62

  At the other end of life is death. And at the end of death, there must be life.

  These things did The Fly know. And he knew he was being watched for the shogun had eyes in the very soil of Japan. In the sacred cities and the villages. Everywhere.

  So The Fly pretended to drink too much wine. And when drinking, he knew one of the eyes of the shogun approached and he told him the secrets of strength, that for every strength there is a weakness. And he gave him the examples.

  Right away this information reached the shogun. And the shogun right away demanded of the spy that he find out from The Fly what the weaknesses were in the shogun's strength.

  And The Fly said that the walls were so thick commands could not be given through
them and the men around the emperor were packed so tightly that a disloyal one must be among them. For among many is a better chance to have an evil one.

  Now this shogun was known to buy whatever was the sharpest blade or strongest warrior. And he sent the spy back to ask The Fly what would be better than his castle or his many men. This, before he would kill The Fly.

  And The Fly said there was a hole in which the greatest robber of all Japan hid and could not be caught.

  Now there were always robbers in every land. Some lands had fewer. Lands that suffered had more. Being free of this criminal type meant only having fewer of them than others. There was never such a thing as no crime anywhere. So The Fly knew there had to be a robber somewhere, even in the orderly land of Japan. And there was.

  63

  And the spy asked, which robber do you mean! And The Fly answered:

  "The great one so great the shogun does nol even know his name. Nor can he ever find him That is the safest man in all Japan. In the safest place because he cannot be betrayed there."

  And when asked where that was, The Fly told the spy that only he and the great robber knew and he would not tell anyone because it was a promise to a dying man. The robber had lived and died peacefully and only the Master of Sinanju knew where this safest place was and he would carry that secret to his grave. He would never give away such a treasure.

  And the spy the next day brought back jewels and asked to trade the jewels for the knowledge of the safe place. But the Master refused for he said the safety of the place would be lost if he told it to anyone who merely had money. For the safety was in its secrecy and only the user and the Master of Sinanju could know the place, for common knowledge of it would be like fire through a wood and paper palace.

  He would only tell the man who was going to use it.

  Now the shogun, being most Japanese, set his mind with discipline and fervor to unlock the mystery of the "safest place in his kingdom. And the Master of Sinanju was taken to a place where torture was done to him and still he did not disclose the place, and finally to the shogun was he taken and there he did what no Japanese dared, He called the shogun a fool.

  "You who are the power behind the emperor, you who have taken heads by the thousands, are the biggest fool in the land. You might as well set