Remo The Adventure Begins

by Warren Murphy

  In a curious way, Sam Makin admired the man for not talking. At least he had guts. Sam admired him one more time, then the man went headfirst into the wharf.

  Sam walked the few paces to his car to phone headquarters. One of his problems was that while he was a good alley fighter, he was a bad liar. He had been told in so many words from his superiors that if he had to bash the skulls of hoods would he please carry a weapon, to insert into their pockets so it would at least look like self-defense. He never did. It was bad enough to consider a lie, inconceivable to carry one.

  But this time, he didn’t have to lie too much. He was attacked three against one. He picked up the mike, and for one moment he let his breath come back to him.

  He did not see the large van with the reinforced metal grid, set in front like a battering ram. He did not hear it slowly move forward. Sam radioed the sergeant, and was reporting how he tried to save one man from two and how they all three turned on him, when the squad car screeched forward. Instinctively he rammed the brakes. But the scream of his tires told him they were holding. It wasn’t the brakes. Behind his car, a large van was slowly pushing his car forward. Then it stopped, backed off, and with increased speed smashed into the rear of the squad car, sending Sam’s forehead into the model of Miss Piggy and then into the windshield, and the whole works went plunging off the pier into the dark waters with the radio voice of the sergeant screaming at him, asking what was wrong.

  The car paused only briefly before it sank into the putrid darkness. Sam tried to open the door, but it was locked. Someone, somehow, had locked it. He was going down and the world was getting dark. He did not see the frogmen scramble to the door, nor feel them strap an oxygen mask on his face. He did not see them put the corpse in his place, the body of a man whose face had been smashed to a pulp as though an accident had done it.

  If the body had not been recovered from the police car with Patrolman Makin’s wallet in its pocket, badge on his lapel, the county coroner might have checked the fingerprints; might have, if the fingers hadn’t been so damaged in the accident. And if it wasn’t so dreadfully obvious what had killed Patrolman Makin the coroner might have done further tests, tests that would have indicated the victim had been dead for an hour before the accident, and that a large brain cancer had claimed his life, not the East River.

  But here was the smashed-in face, here was the water over the uniform, and because there was no water in the lungs, the coroner labeled it not death by drowning, but by concussion.

  Patrolman Sam Makin was dead.

  And a day and a half later he came to and remembered it all.

  “Why did you kill me?” asked Sam.

  “Because we needed Remo Williams.”

  “Who is Remo Williams?”

  “You’re going to save the country, sweetheart. And a live man couldn’t possibly do it.”

  “Who is Remo Williams?”

  “You are,” said the man who called himself Con McCleary, the man who would later tell him he had driven the truck that sent his police car into the river. “You are. Here. Let me help you see yourself.”

  He removed the bandages around the head. And held up a mirror for the patient to see. The cheekbones were higher, the lips thinner and the nose straightened in such a way as to become strong and dominant. The bandages had not been for a head wound. Someone had given him a new face.

  “That’s not me,” said Sam. “I don’t know him.”

  “Remo, you never looked so good,” said McCleary.

  “Where’s my face? What did you do with me?”

  “Remo, don’t worry about the past. You may even have a future,” said McCleary. “I happen to like that face better. And I chose the name myself; don’t you like it?”

  “Why, certainly. There’s nothing quite like being killed and waking up as someone else.”

  “Remo, you will get to know and love your name. You’ll find out it is who you always should have been. Remo, you’re going to save our country, or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “Well, you know we can always fill a coffin,” said the well-dressed black man. “And Sam Makin is already dead.”

  2

  His name was Chiun. But in the village, the village of Sinanju, they called him Master. This day after so long, there was celebration again in the village on the West Korea Bay. Gongs clanged, women dressed in their most decorative kimonos and children were given sweet cakes. For this day, after several decades, the reigning Master was going forth again, as his forefathers had over the centuries, to earn tribute for the House of Sinanju.

  Famines might come to other villages on the Korean peninsula, but not the little fishing village of Sinanju, for even if the fish failed to swim into the nets, this village would always eat. Just one jewel or trunk of gold from the House of Sinanju would feed everyone for years. And there were many trunks of gold, and many jewels, in that great house.

  Foreign soldiers might come to other villages on the Korean peninsula, taking the women, humiliating the men, but never in Sinanju. The Japanese had ruled Korea. The Chinese had ruled Korea. But not one of those soldiers dared set foot in Sinanju lest their emperor have them beheaded.

  For if a soldier might not know of the power of the House of Sinanju, the king did. The emperor did. The tyrant did. From ancient Rome to the thrones of Japan, from Greek conquerors to Mogul lords, all knew no ruling throat was so regally protected as to be beyond the awesome hands of the Masters of Sinanju.

  For centuries, the Masters of Sinanju were assassins to the great. Their services had decided dynasties, felled kingdoms.

  So great was the skill of the Masters of Sinanju that others invariably tried to copy them, and invariably failed. Their failures were called Karate, Tai Kwan Do, Ninja, and all the lesser forms of hand fighting imitating the sun source of all the martial arts, Sinanju. And like the weaker rays, they were less than one-hundredth of the source.

  For Sinanju was Sinanju and it could never be taken, but only given, and lo for centuries upon centuries it had been given from one Master of Sinanju to another, each going forth into the world to bring back tribute and prosperity to the village . . . until the bad times.

  This was the year of the horse, shortly after the turn of one of the western centuries. A great war broke out among white nations, the first of two in which all of them went mad, bringing their wars to Asia also. They were the world wars.

  Kings fell. And nations changed. Millions were killed, crudely killed, by anyone calling himself a soldier or general. And nations took it upon themselves to create their own assassins, from whoever lived within their borders, not recognizing that a truly professional assassin could not be made from just anyone or by anyone.

  And for years, no one called upon Sinanju for its services.

  Until the great year of the dragon, when the planets had reached their most auspicious position, a black from the new nation of America, a mere budding two hundred years old, came to offer tribute to the House of Sinanju.

  The man’s name was McCleary, meaning that his family’s name was McCleary, taken as was white custom from the father’s side. The first name, Con, was used by intimates. But if both names were used together, then it became the formal address.

  All of this was explained by Chiun who knew whites, Chiun the latest Master of Sinanju who said the stars had foretold the return of the whites, and the return of honor to the House of Sinanju. The world would be reminded again about what had been missing from the halls of power for more than a half-century.

  Thus it was a day of celebration. Thus the gongs. Thus the sweet cakes, thus the rejoicing as Chiun in a pink-and-lavender presentation kimono descended from the great house on the hill.

  Chiun of course had seen it first out in the bay. Shortly thereafter the villagers saw it. A great metal boat rose from underneath the water to take the Master to his first service in more than fifty years. The House of Sinanju was going out into the world again.

  On b
oard the USS Crawfish, the captain nervously hoisted the American flag above the conning tower of the submarine. These were North Korean territorial waters and the last boat to get this close to a North Korean shore was captured, the crew tortured and held for a year. This captain not only was in the waters, he was under orders to dock at the fishing piers of the village.

  He had questioned the orders three times. And the last affirmation came from someone above the Secretary of Defense. The USS Crawfish was to proceed to the little harbor of Sinanju and thereupon board “with utmost respect,” to meet one oriental who was “to be called sir at all times,” and to offload four sealed trunks. “The submarine will display the American flag at all times, as though entering a friendly port.”

  The captain had checked that one especially. The final response to the almost desperate inquiries about the accuracy of the orders was: “This is absolutely correct. You must identify yourself as an American vessel of war at all times, especially when you enter Sinanju.”

  The captain had protested. “Sinanju is North Korea. You don’t get more north than that.” He was taken in for a long confidential talk by a civilian. He did not know the civilian. He just knew the man had higher clearance than the moon.

  “Look. I can’t tell you what is going on because I know even the Secretary of Defense doesn’t have clearance on this one. But Sinanju is not just any village. Even when General MacArthur drove up to the Yalu in the Korean War, before the Chinese counterattacked, we were not allowed to enter Sinanju.”

  “Why not?” the captain had asked.

  “I don’t know. But I do know that when the Chinese drove us south again, they didn’t enter the village either, and more important, and don’t say I was the one who gave you this information, even the North Korean state police don’t enter it.”

  “Don’t worry about me telling anyone—I won’t live to get the chance,” said the captain. He remembered this as he approached the old wooden piers with the fishing sampans tied to it. The village was a small collection of huts, a muddy street, and on a low hill a large wooden house of many jutting rooms. The exteriors of the rooms were Greek design, Roman, Mogul, Czarist, French Provincial, English Tudor. A riot of history with nothing connecting them but walls.

  It was not the house, however, that interested the captain of the USS Crawfish. Beyond the house, in the surrounding gray Korean hills, artillery pieces trained on his submarine. They had been trained on the USS Crawfish since it surfaced in the bay. North Korean soldiers, the most virulently anti-American in the world, were manning them. They couldn’t miss. The captain saw the shells load into open breeches. He could almost hear the order to fire as the North Korean officers raised their hands.

  Then the captain of the USS Crawfish heard it. There was a great bustle in the village. There seemed to be some sort of celebration going on, and then the captain saw what they were celebrating. An elderly man, bald but for wisps of white hair, in a pink-and-lavender robe, shuffled down the muddy strip that was the main street of the village. Behind him laboring men carried fourteen brightly colored large steamer trunks that looked as though they had been saved from a vacation in Victorian England. As the old man walked, he gave little bows. Children held cakes aloft.

  And in the hills, to the amazement of the captain, the North Korean artillerymen left their guns to bow low, like Moslems in prayer, touching their heads to the ground in adoration.

  “Will you get a load of that?” said the captain to the executive officer.

  “I saw it. Who is that guy?” asked the executive officer.

  “You’re not supposed to know,” said the captain.

  And he ordered the four trunks offloaded. But there was a problem. The trunks were too heavy. No four men could carry them. No six men could even lift them. They would have to be winched out of the hold.

  When they touched the deck of the submarine, the whole ship shivered. Only two things were that heavy. Lead and something else. And when the villagers opened the trunks, the captain saw it was the something else. Four trunks of shiny yellow gold, at least a ton and a half per trunk. Six tons of gold, with gold at several hundred dollars an ounce.

  The villagers brought it bar by bar to the strange-looking house on the hill. And then they began loading the fourteen quaint steamer trunks onto the sub.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said the captain, “but fourteen trunks use up quite a bit of space. Do you think, sir, that you might be able to scrape by with a few trunks less?”

  “Able?” said the oriental in the lavender-and-pink robes. He had a squeaky voice, like a broken violin whose bow used too much resin.

  “Could you, sir?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because we don’t have enough room.”

  The oriental thought about that a moment, and then said something in Korean, which the captain did not understand. But shortly, to the captain’s horror, he saw villagers hoist up through the conning tower large torpedoes, and with a human chain move them to the shore. The same chain moved the trunks on board, followed by the oriental.

  “I can’t leave U.S. torpedoes on a North Korean shore.”

  “I am not come to your new shores that I should be bothered with the problems of boatmen,” said Chiun to the captain, and he clapped his hands signaling that the boat should be off.

  There was no more insolence from the boatman thereafter. Chiun, Master of Sinanju, had left his village to glorify its name, so long forgotten among dynasties and kingdoms that had been destroyed in the recent turmoils.

  “Hi,” greeted Con McCleary when the USS Crawfish disgorged its passenger to a large pleasure boat just outside American territorial waters. McCleary was the only passenger on the boat. Navy crewmen unloaded the trunks which filled the small boat almost to tipping. Chiun left the submarine with a nod of acknowledgment to the boatman.

  “I am sorry I had to pick you up out here, but this whole organization is secret. It’s good to see you again, Master of Sinanju.”

  “I understand secrets,” said Chiun. “I am after all an assassin.”

  “I told upstairs that,” said McCleary.

  “Ah, your emperor.”

  “He is not an emperor,” said McCleary. The black had an easy grace for his large tough frame yet it was nothing compared to the frail oriental. Where McCleary easily balanced with the pitch of the boat as it cut through the waves, Chiun seemed to be part of the waves. The boat moved but he didn’t.

  “Not emperor yet,” said Chiun with a knowing smile.

  “No. My boss, the head of the outfit, Harold W. Smith, does not want to be emperor.”

  “I understand,” said Chiun. “He only wishes to serve his people.”

  “Exactly,” said McCleary.

  “But when the emperor dies he will reluctantly assume the throne. I understand,” said Chiun, and enjoyed the pleasant salt air, waiting to see the shoreline of this new country.

  “No. No. He will never be emperor. That’s not why you are here. You are not here to assassinate someone.”

  Chiun smiled. “Of course I am here for that. I am not a dentist after all. I am not here to pull teeth.”

  “No, as we agreed, you will train someone in Sinanju.”

  “I only train a future Master. That is the only one who can learn Sinanju.”

  “But I thought you said you could teach Sinanju. I thought that’s what we talked about back in the village when we made the arrangement for the gold tribute and the submarine to pick you up.”

  “You asked if I could teach Sinanju. And I can.”

  “Good,” said McCleary, trying to dismiss his sudden vision of the whole thing coming apart—the entire phony death of the New York City patrolman, all the strings and setups to bring the one right man to the one right trainer—all falling down now because of a misinterpretation. “Good and wonderful,” said McCleary with relief. “You can teach Sinanju.”

  “To a suitable boy from our village,” said Chiun.


  “But we don’t have one. We don’t have one of those,” said McCleary, all the nasty thoughts coming back with their relatives called consequences.

  “I see by your face you are troubled,” said Chiun. “Do not be. You have hired the best in all history. You cannot fail. Do not hate yourself because you have failed to find a suitable pupil. I myself with Sinanju have passed over two generations of young men without a suitable heir. That is my worry, not yours. Your worries are over. You have hired Sinanju. Just name your enemy, and his head will be on your palace wall for display at your pleasure.”

  Con McCleary steadied the boat. Then he steadied himself.

  “Master of Sinanju, we have got to use this one man.”

  “Does he know Sinanju?”

  “No.”

  “Then why use him?”

  “It’s complicated. It’s an American problem. We went to great trouble to find just the right person who could disappear from the face of the earth. We have found the one person who is just right for us. He will solve our problems.”

  “And who better to solve them than a Master of Sinanju,” said Chiun.

  “People will recognize you. I mean people do tend to remember pink-and-lavender kimonos. We need someone who is the average-looking sort of Joe Blow. We need a white man.”

  “Ah,” said Chiun. He finally understood. “You wish that I teach this white man so that he will teach others, and then you will not have to pay future tribute. This does not work. Genghis Khan tried that with his Mongol horsemen who, you must admit, are far closer to us racially than you are. And they could only ride their ponies better. You have paid for the best, use the best.”

  “Master, we not only need you to train this one person, we need you to teach him the natural kill or accidental kill as I have heard it described.”

  “Oh no. You don’t want the natural kill. No one knows vengeance has been wreaked when you use the natural kill. A natural kill can look like a fire or a heart attack. It is not something one uses for every occasion.”