Assassins Play Off td-20

by Warren Murphy

  "I'm going to give you something for the pain," he said.

  Remo shook his head. "No, you're not."

  "But the pain must be terrible. This will just help to relieve it."

  "No needles," said Remo. "Smitty, remember that hamburger that put me in the hospital? No needles. No drugs in the system."

  Smith looked at the doctor and shook his head. "He'll deal with the pain, doctor. No injections."

  Smith escorted the doctor to the door and outside on the walkway thanked him for his assistance.

  "Don't mention it," said the doctor, who had not come willingly, but only because his hospital director had told him if he did not go on this case he might find someday that he had trouble in obtaining his specialty licenses. The medical director of the hospital had said this because he had been advised that it would be beneficial in the ongoing review of his income tax returns to make sure that a doctor was available for a motel call, in exactly three minutes.

  When Smith reentered the room, Remo was sitting up on the bed.

  "Okay, Smitty, where is it?"

  "Where is what?"

  "My submarine."

  "One thing at a time."

  "Anybody who can get a doctor to make a house call won't have any trouble getting a submarine to sneak me into North Korea."

  And with that, Remo closed his eyes and lay back to rest.

  He would soon be on his way to Sinanju; he had done all he could; the next thing was to warn Chiun about the danger from Nuihc. It was only as he drifted into sleep that he allowed himself to remember that it was Remo himself who had drawn the first three blows from Nuihc's kamikazes, and the next blow, under the ages-old tradition of Sinanju, would mean Remo's death.

  And after Remo, Chiun.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Captain Lee Enright Leahy of the U.S. Submarine Darter thought it was all very funny. Sneaking into enemy waters, putting ashore a man old enough to be Confucius, sneaking away, and what kind of a man was the old Oriental? A man who wanted to watch soap operas and was annoyed that Navy submarines did not have TV reception facilities for As the Planet Revolves.

  Captain Leahy thought this all very funny, so funny in fact that he was in the process of telling it to his fellow drinkers at the officers' club bar at Mindanao, where the Navy maintained a small base to refuel submarines.

  But he had not gotten quite to the good part, the part about the soap operas, when he was tapped on the shoulder by a chief petty officer,

  "Cap'n, sir."

  "What is it?" Leahy said, his voice surly at being interrupted.

  "Phone call, sir."

  "Tell them I'll be there in a minute."

  "It's Washington, sir."

  The CPO's voice was insistent.

  The moment was gone; the officers who had been listening with rapt attention were now turning back toward each other, picking up the threads of their own conversations. Damn, thought Leahy. Aloud he said, "probably another ferry run for another old gook who likes soap operas," but the comment did not get the rise he had hoped for and Captain Leahy went to the phone.

  There he was told by an official in the Navy Department that he would be presented with a passenger who would have sealed orders. Leahy would follow the orders. He would not mention this to anyone as the orders were top secret and so was the mission.

  And he was directed to return to his ship immediately to await the arrival of the passenger.

  Annoyed, without even time to finish his drink, Captain Leahy, jaw set, marched out of the officers' club and walked the hundred yards to the pier where the Darter had been refueled and made ready for another voyage. The long oil and supply hoses that were used to revitalize the sub's innards had been dropped from the feeder holes as the sub lay tied up at dock-side. Refueling, resupply was over.

  Captain Leahy clambered up the gangway to the deck of the sub where he was met by his executive officer.

  "We've taken aboard a passenger," the exec said.

  Leahy shook his head. "Another Charley Chan?" he asked.

  "No, sir, this one's an American. Young. Or I think he's young. He seems to be injured. He walks with a cane. I've put him in my quarters, sir."

  "All right, Lieutenant. I'd better go see what nitty-witty the U.S. Government is up to tonight."

  Captain Leahy went down the forward hatch and knocked on the door of the passenger's compartment.

  "Yeah?"

  "The captain."

  "What do you want?"

  "I'm coming in to talk to you."

  "If you want to."

  When Leahy opened the door, the new passenger was lying on the built-in bunk, wearing jockey shorts. Both shoulders were heavily bandaged, his right thigh was wrapped around with bandages. A cane leaned against the small built-in writing desk. The passenger's clothes were strewn on the floor.

  "Don't tell me," Leahy said. "We're taking you to the Rusk Institute for Physical Rehabilitation." He smiled at his own joke. He was the only one who did.

  "No, actually you're taking me to Sinanju." The passenger nodded his head toward the desk. "It's all in those orders over there."

  Leahy opened the sealed envelope marked "top secret." The orders were identical to those he had received for the old Oriental.

  "Is your luggage aboard?" asked Leahy.

  "I don't travel with luggage."

  "That's a novelty."

  "And I don't like soap operas," said Remo.

  "That's a novelty, too."

  "And another novelty is that I don't like company, I don't feel like chit-chat, I won't complain about the food because all I want is rice unseasoned, and I won't complain about the air or the noise or the boredom as long as we get out of here and get to Sinanju as quickly as possible."

  "My sentiments exactly."

  "See you there," said Remo. "I'm going to sleep."

  And that was the last Captain Leahy saw or heard of his passenger until they were in the West Korean Bay and he had to go to the passenger's cabin to tell him they were soon to surface.

  "I'll need a raft and a man to row me ashore," said Remo. "My shoulders aren't up to rowing. Or swimming."

  "Right. Will you need any help ashore?"

  "I don't think so," said Remo. "I should be met."

  "I rather doubt it," said Leahy. "We're way ahead of our estimated arrival time. You may have to wait ashore a long time for whoever it is is supposed to meet you."

  "There'll be someone there," said Remo stubbornly, working one toe against the other heel, trying to get on his soft Italian leather slipons.

  So Captain Lee Enright Leahy was not totally surprised when his submarine moved in close to the shore and he popped up the periscope and scanned the shoreline and saw, standing on the sand, looking out toward the USS Darter, the aged Oriental, wearing a bright red brocaded robe, pacing back and forth, obviously oblivious to the cold.

  "Of course, he's here," Leahy mumbled to himself. "We left him here, he's been here ever since, and this other looneytoon is going to get off here and the two of them are going to wait and I'm going to come back twice more with two more people until they have a full table for bridge. The whole country's going nuts."

  "Beg pardon, sir," said the executive officer.

  "Surface and let's prepare to put our cargo ashore." said Leahy. "Before he decides to become a teapot."

  "Aye, aye, sir," said the exec. Turning away, he mumbled "teapot, eh?" and decided that Captain Leahy would have to be watched.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "So this is it, huh?" said Remo as he limped through the shallow rock-bottomed water onto the shore. Behind him, the two sailors in the rubber raft used their oars to push the craft away from the shoreline and to hustle back to the waiting submarine.

  Chiun stepped toward Remo, a smile lighting his face.

  "Yes," he said. "This is it. The Pearl of the Orient." He waved his arms dramatically right and left. "The Sun Source of the World's Wisdom. Sinanju."

  Rem
o's eyes followed Chiun's arms to the left and right. To the left was barren, rockstrewn desolation; to the right was more barren, rockstrewn desolation. The waves broke white, bubbling, and cold on the shore.

  "What a dump," said Remo.

  "Ah, but wait until you see the fishing building," said Chiun.

  Using his cane for support, Remo hobbled forward again toward Chiun. Water squished from his soaked loafers but he did not feel the cold. Chiun's face squinted up as he seemed to see, for the first time, the cane in Remo's hand.

  "Aiiieeee." His left hand flashed sideways, almost glinting in the brittle November sunlight of Sinanju. The broad leading edge of his hand hit the cane. The wood snapped and broke. Remo got his weight off it just quickly enough to avoid falling into the water. He stood there, holding the curved crook of the cane in his right hand, the rest of the cane bobbing in the water behind his back, before seeming to fight its way over the waves and back out toward the sea.

  "Dammit, Chiun, I need that."

  "I do not know what they have taught you in America while I was gone, but no disciple of the Master of Sinanju will use a walking stick. People will look. They will say, look, there is the disciple of the Master, and how young he is and he walks with a stick and how foolish of the Master to have tried to train such a pale piece of pig's ear to do anything. And they will scoff at me and I will not have it in my own land. What is wrong with you that you think you need a cane?"

  "Three attacks, Little Father," Remo said. "Both shoulders and right leg."

  Chiun searched Remo's face to determine if he knew the significance of the three attacks. The thin set of Remo's lips showed that he did.

  "Well, we must go on to my palace," said Chiun, "and there we will care for you. Come."

  He turned and walked away along the beach. Remo, using his left leg to move, and dragging his right leg heavily, hobbled after him. But he could not keep up, as Chiun widened the distance between them.

  Finally, Chiun stopped ahead of Remo and gazed around him as if examining the majesty of his kingdom. Remo caught up to him. Without a word, Chiun turned and continued along the path he had taken, but this time more slowly, and Remo was able to stay at his side.

  Fifty yards farther along, they stopped atop a small rise.

  "There," said Chiun, pointing off in the distance. "The new fishing building."

  Remo looked where Chiun pointed. A shanty of old water-logged planks and rolled tarpaper roofing perched precariously atop a deck that itself was perched delicately atop wooden pilings. It looked as if one sardine over the legal limit would topple it into the bay.

  "What a dump," said Remo.

  "Ahhh, to you it looks like a dump but it is highly efficient. The people of Sinanju have built it just right, to do its work. They are not interested in things for show, for the sake of show. Function is important. Come, I will show it to you. Would you like to see it?"

  "Little Father," said Remo. "I would like to go to your house."

  "Ah, yes. The American to the end. Not wishing to look and to learn from the wisdom of other people. It would not be right for you to try to learn how to build fishing buildings. That would make sense. Suppose someday you are without work? You could say, aha, but I can build fishing buildings and maybe that would keep you from standing on line for charity. But no, that requires foresight, of which you have none. And industry, of which you have less. No. Fritter your time away like the grasshopper, which finds itself in winter with nothing to eat."

  "Chiun, please. Your house," said Remo, who stood only with great pain.

  "It is all right," said Chiun. "I am used to your laziness. And it is a palace, not a house," and he turned left and began trudging along a sandy dirt road toward a small cluster of buildings several hundred yards away.

  Remo hobbled to keep up with him.

  "Didn't you once tell me, Little Father, that every time you entered the village, they threw flower petals in your path?" asked Remo, noticing that the road to the village center was empty of people and that Chiun, for all the so-called majesty of his office, might have been just another golden-ager out for a walk.

  "I have suspended the flower petal requirement," said Chiun officiously.

  "Why?"

  "Because you are an American. I knew you might be misunderstanding of it. It is all right. The people protested but in the end I prevailed. I do not need flower petals to remind me of the love of my subjects."

  No one met them on the street. No vehicles were to be seen. There were only a few stores and Remo could see people inside them but none came out to greet Chiun.

  "You sure this is Sinanju?" asked Remo.

  "Yes. Why do you ask?"

  "Because it seems that a town you support and that your family has supported for centuries ought to pay a little more attention to you," said Remo.

  "I have suspended the attention-paying requirement," said Chiun. His manner, Remo noticed, was less official and sounded a little like an apology. "Because…"

  "I know, because I'm an American."

  "Right," said Chiun. "But remember, even if they do not come out, people are watching. I wish you would walk right and not embarrass me by seeming to be an old man, old before your time, older even than your western dissolution would seem to require."

  "I will try, Little Father, not to embarrass you," said Remo and, by an effort of will, he forced himself to put some weight on his injured right leg, reducing the limp, and, even though each motion pained him, he forced himself to swing his arms from the shoulders almost normally as he walked.

  "There is the ancestral palace," said Chiun, motioning ahead with a nod of his head.

  Remo looked ahead. Into his mind flashed a building he had once seen in California. It had been created by its builder from junk, made of broken bottles and tin cans and styrofoam cups and old tires and broken pieces of boards.

  Chiun's house reminded Remo of a house built by the same craftsman, but this time with access to more materials, for in a village of wooden shanties and huts, Chiun's home was made of stone and…

  And… glass and steel and wood and rock and shell. It was a low, one-story building whose architecture seemed to be American ranch as seen through an LSD haze.

  "It's… it's… it's… really something to see," said Remo.

  "It has been in my family for centuries," said Chiun. "Of course, I had it remodeled many years ago. I put in a bathroom which I thought was a good idea you westerners had. And a kitchen with a stove. See, Remo, I am willing to take advice when it is good."

  Remo was pleased to hear that, for he had some additional good advice for Chiun—tear it down and start all over. He decided to tether his tongue.

  Chiun led Remo to the front door, apparently made of wood. Only apparently, because the door had been totally covered over with shells of clams, oysters, and mussels. The door looked like a section of Belmar Beach four hours after a New Jersey rip tide.

  The door was heavy and Chiun pushed it open with seeming difficulty. He looked at Remo almost apologetically.

  "I know," said Remo. "You have suspended the door opening requirement."

  "How did you know?"

  "Because I'm an American," said Remo.

  While Remo had considered the building's exterior as ugly, not even that had prepared him for the inside. Every available inch of floor space seemed to have something on it. There were jugs and vases and plates, there were statues and swords, there were masks and baskets, there were piles of cushions in place of chairs, there were low tables of highly-polished wood, there were colored stones in glass jars.

  Chiun spun around and indicated his domain with another sweep of his hand.

  "Well, Remo, what do you think?"

  "I am underwhelmed," said Remo.

  "I knew you would be," said Chiun. "These are all the prizes of the Masters of Sinanju. Tribute paid us by rulers from all over the world. From the Sun King as you call him. From Ptolemy. From the shahs of those countless count
ries that make grease. From the emperors of China when they remembered to pay their bills. From tribes of India. From a once-great nation of black Africa."

  "Who ripped you off giving you a jar of colored stones?" asked Remo, looking at a jar which stood in the corner of the room, a foot and a half high, filled with dull stones.

  "How American you are," said Chiun.

  "Well, I mean one of your ancestors got hustled."

  "The jar was the agreed-upon price."

  "A jar filled with rocks?"

  "A jar filled with uncut diamonds."

  Remo looked at the jar again. It was true. It was filled with uncut diamonds and the smallest was two inches across.

  "But I would not expect you to understand that," said Chiun. "For you, for the western mind, all the world is divided into two categories: shiny and not shiny. For you, a piece of glass. But for a Master of Sinanju, diamonds. Because we can look under the dullness and see the value of the core."

  "Like you did with me?" said Remo.

  "Even Masters of Sinanju sometimes get fooled. Something that is supposed to be an uncut diamond may turn out to be just a rock."

  "Chiun, I wanted to ask you something."

  "Ask me anything."

  "I wanted to know," and then Remo felt the strength draining from his limbs and he knew that his muscles had been extended beyond the point that they could be extended, and his right leg started to cave, and suddenly the effort of will ended, and his shoulders were blazing with pain. He opened his mouth to say something more, but he couldn't, and then he was falling toward the floor of the room.

  He did not remember hitting the floor. He did not remember being lifted.

  He only remembered waking up and looking around. He was in a small sunlit room, lying on a pile of cushions, naked, covered only with a thin silken sheet.

  Chiun stood by his side and when Remo's eyes opened, he knelt. Carefully but quickly, his hands began to remove the bandages from Remo's shoulders.

  "The doctor put those on," said Remo.

  "The doctor is a fool. No muscle is helped by being strapped. Rest, yes. Imprisonment, no. We will make you well soon. We will…" but his voice trailed off as he saw Remo's right shoulder, as the last strand of bandage fell off.