Line of Succession td-73

by Warren Murphy

  "Damn!" said Remo. "Chiun, here's what you do. Knock 'em out. Knock them all out. We'll sort them later." Remo took the two Dutchmen in his hands and squeezed nerves in their necks. They collapsed like deflated party balloons.

  "You watch Freya," Remo told Jilda, and leapt down to the square.

  It was easy work. Remo simply ran through the village, taking necks at random. No one fought back. Remo was too fast, and every neck he squeezed was as unresisting as a kitten's. Remo worked his way toward Chiun, who was busy performing the same operation, except that Remo let them lie where they fell and Chiun made little piles of purpleclad Dutchmen.

  They ended up back-to-back in the village square, Dutchmen falling all around their feet.

  "What happened?" Remo demanded.

  "He got away and worked his magic. As you can see," Chiun explained.

  "You were supposed to keep him under guard," Remo said, gently lowering a Dutchman to the ground.

  "He recovered more swiftly than I expected," Chiun complained, taking two necks at once. Two identical Dutchmen closed their neon-blue eyes and joined other heaps of purple-clad figures.

  "Dammit, Chiun. You know how dangerous he is," Remo said.

  "Yes," Chiun said evenly. "I know how dangerous he is. "

  After the entire square became littered with unconscious Dutchmen, Remo and Chiun worked their way out to the huts and hovels of the village. They found other Dutchmen cowering under the raised floors and in darkened rooms. They dragged every last one into the open.

  "I think this is the last," said Chiun, lugging a body over his frail shoulders and depositing him in a pile.

  "How can you tell?" asked Remo, joining him.

  "Because I count 334 Dutchmen. "

  "So? "

  "That is precisely the number of villagers in Sinanju."

  "That means we don't have the right one."

  "Really, Remo," said Chiun, surveying his handiwork with a certain pride. "That should be obvious to you. If the true Dutchman had succumbed, his illusion would have vanished with his consciousness."

  "Yeah, you're right. What do we do now?"

  "I think I saw someone running toward the East Road. Did you intercept one of the false Dutchman going that way? "

  "No," said Remo.

  "Then I suggest you go swiftly along the East Road if you wish to settle with your enemy. "

  "You seem awfully eager to see me go," Remo said suspiciously.

  Chiun shrugged. "I cannot stop you if you are bent upon your own destruction."

  Remo hesitated.

  "Or you can help me sort my villagers. Perhaps the Dutchman is among them."

  "I'll see you later," Remo said evenly, taking off.

  "I will guard your woman and your child while you are gone," said Chiun loudly. Under his breath he added, "On your wild-goose chase."

  Remo Williams took the inland road away from the village of Sinanju. A simple dirt road, it ran for several hundred yards and suddenly diverged into three superhighways that were bare of traffic. Beyond the horizon, the smoky glow of the most heavily industrialized section of North Korea obscured the stars. The bite of chemical wastes abraded Remo's lungs. Although the East Road was deserted, Remo set off at a dead run. If the Dutchman had taken this road, Remo would catch up with him. But somehow Remo didn't think the Dutchman had taken the East Road at all. He had known Chiun too long and he figured this was one of his tricks. But Remo was not sure, so he ran and ran, eating up miles of black asphalt with his feet and getting further and further away, he suspected, from his ultimate enemy on earth.

  In Sinanju, the villagers began to wake up. Their resemblance to the Dutchman faded slowly, like a double exposure. The phenomenon told the Master of Sinanju that the Dutchman had escaped safely.

  Chiun roused some of the slow ones with massaging fingers applied to their necks. It increased the flow of oxygen-carrying blood to their brains, reviving them faster than a shot of stimulant.

  Jilda watched with Freya at her side.

  "What if Remo does not come back?" she asked.

  "He will," Chiun said absently.

  "Not if he finds the Dutchman."

  "He will not. I told Remo that the Dutchman took the East Road. If he decides to believe me, he will take the East Road and waste his time. If he chose not to believe me, he will take either the North or South road."

  "I understand," said Jilda. "There is only a one-in-three chance that Remo took the correct road."

  "No," said Chiun, whispering encouragement to a waking villager. "The chance is none in three. The Dutchman took the shore road."

  "Then why did you send Remo along the East Road?"

  "Because I have spent two decades training him and do not wish to lose him foolishly."

  "He will know he has been tricked."

  "Remo is used to being tricked. If his mind were as strong as his body, he would be the greatest Master Sinanju has ever known."

  "None of us are safe as long as the Dutchman lives."

  "I do not claim to have achieved a solution to this problem," Chiun said, shooing the last of his villagers away. "Only that I have postponed one tragic result."

  The three stood alone in the silent village square. The only light came from the moon. Chiun took in a deep breath of sea air. It was cold and bitter.

  When Remo returned, his shoulders sloped dejectedly. "He got away," he said.

  "Is that a bad thing?" asked Chiun.

  "We gotta get him. Now. Today. This can't go on. We can't have him hanging over our lives like this."

  "I think it is not my life he hangs over," said Chiun. "I think it is yours. And are you so eager to end your life that you will pursue your inevitable mutual destruction with this man? "

  "If we're going to die because of one another, I'd rather get it over with," Remo said seriously.

  "How white," Chiun remarked nastily. "Oh, it is too much of a burden to wait and plan a solution to my problem. I would rather commit suicide than live in such uncertainty."

  "It's not that way, Chiun, and you know it."

  "Oh? Then how is it, Remo? You cannot kill this man. Let him go lick his wounds. You are stronger than he is. He knows that now. Perhaps he will never return."

  "You're forgetting that he killed Mah-Li."

  "And you are forgetting that beside you stand your child and the woman who bore her."

  "That's exactly why I have to take care of the Dutchman," Remo said. "Don't you see that? They're not safe as long as he's alive. He won't stop until he's murdered everyone in my life. I'm going after him. Are you going to tell me which way he went-or am I going to have to waste a lot of precious time?"

  "Very well," Chiun said, drawing himself up proudly. "He took the shore road."

  "See you later, then."

  "If that is your wish. You will miss the funeral. But it does not matter. A person so bent on self-destruction that he would leave without saying good-bye to his only child and the child's mother is obviously above pausing to pay his respects to the woman he almost married. The woman he claims to have loved."

  Remo stopped in his tracks. He did not turn around. "Postpone the funeral," he said.

  "Sinanju law. Burial must be on the evening of the passing of the villager. I cannot bend Sinanju law, not even for you. But go. I will tell the villagers that you would not attend the funeral because you did not truly love her. I have been saying it for months, and now you are proving it to me."

  Remo turned to face the Master of Sinanju. The resolve vanished from his face. "You always have an answer, don't you, Chiun?"

  "No," said Chiun, turning his back on Remo. "It is you who always have a problem. But I like that in you. It makes life so interesting. Now, let us bury our dead."

  Chapter 30

  Cold moonlight washed the funeral of the maiden Mah-Li like an astringent solution.

  The funeral procession began in front of the House of the Masters. The entire village wore white, the
traditional Korean color of mourning. Villagers carried the rosewood coffin on a palanquin. Remo and Chiun walked just ahead of the litter, the remaining villagers trailing behind, carrying incense burners and making no more noise than the sea mists rolling off the bay.

  Jilda walked in the rear, her arms bandaged, Freya beside her.

  The procession followed the shore road to the plum-tree-shaded burial ground of the village of Sinanju. Every Sinanju villager was entitled to a mound of dirt in the burial plot, with a small stone or pillar to mark his or her life.

  The palanquin was set on the ground beside an open hole. After a moment of silence in which the villagers were allowed a final view of the face of the deceased, the coffin was closed.

  The Master of Sinanju watched his pupil, Remo Williams, as the lid closed on the face of his beloved for the final time. There was no expression on his face. No shock, no grief, no nothing. Chiun's parchment countenance frowned.

  Chiun stepped before the villagers.

  "Think not that Mah-Li is dead," he said, looking squarely at Remo. "She was a flower whose perfume has made our lives sweeter, but all flowers wither. Some with age, some by disease, and others by cruel acts. So it was here. But let this be said of Mah-Li, if nothing else. That she was a flower who left us while her perfume was still fragrant in our nostrils, and our last sight of her face gave us the pleasure of her smooth skin and her innocent nature. No one will remember this child as stooped or wrinkled or infirm. I decree that future generations, when they speak of Mah-Li, will know her as Mah-Li the Flower." Chiun paused.

  The villagers wept silently. Only Remo stood unmoved. "Before we let the maiden Mah-Li settle into her final rest, I will ask her beloved, my adopted son, Remo, to speak of her memory."

  Remo stepped forward like a robot. He looked down at the coffin.

  "A year ago I took a vow to protect this village and everyone in it," Remo said. "My vow to you today is that the man who did this will pay dearly. No matter what it costs me." And Remo stepped back.

  Chiun, unsettled by the raw edge in Remo's voice, signaled for the coffin to be lowered into the ground. Shovels began cutting into the mound of loose dirt beside the hole, and with dull, final sounds, clods of barren earth fell upon the coffin.

  The people of Sinanju stood respectfully as the coffin was covered. Except Remo Williams. Without a word, he stormed off.

  Chiun lowered his head sadly. Tonight, he thought, felt like the end of so many things.

  Remo took the shore road, the wind whipping the loose cotton of his white funeral costume. He had no destination in mind. He was just walking.

  He came to the house he had built with his own hands and never finished. The doorway gaped cavernously like the eye of a skull. There was a hole in one wall, where the Dutchman had hurled him, and no roof. It was the final touch he had not gotten around to.

  Remo stepped inside. The interior was a single square room filled with starlight so bright Remo could see the hairs on the back of his hand clearly. He squatted in the middle of the room and lifted his face to the sky. It was brilliant with stars. They lay in wreaths and pools, like diamonds awash in celestial milk. In all his years in America, Remo had never seen such a beautiful night sky. Its haunting glory made him want to cry. But he knew that if he shed tears now, they would not be in tribute to the beauty of creation, but over the waste of earthy dreams.

  The Master of Sinanju appeared in the doorway. He said nothing. Remo did not acknowledge his presence, although both men knew that each was aware of the other.

  Finally Chiun spoke.

  "It is customary to speak of the cherished memory of a loved one at a funeral, not to voice vengeance."

  If Chiun expected an answer, he was disappointed. Remo continued to ignore him.

  Realizing that his pupil was not going to take the bait, Chiun asked in a gentler voice, "What is it you do here, my son?"

  Remo's throat worked as he struggled to answer. His words were thick.

  "I was trying to visualize how it would have been."

  "Ah," said Chiun, understanding.

  "I'm trying to imagine the furniture," Remo went on in a distant voice. "Where the cooking fire would be, how the noodles would be drying out in the courtyard with the radishes in their big rattan bowls. The sleeping mats would be over there. How every morning she would wake me up with a kiss. I keep trying to see the children we won't ever have. And you know what, Chiun?" Remo said, his voice cracking.

  "What?"

  "I can't," Remo said, choking on the words. Chiun frowned.

  "I can't imagine it. No matter how hard I try, I can't imagine how it would be. For a solid year I daydreamed about it all the time. I knew exactly how it would feel and smell and taste, but now I can't even bring back the memory of that dream."

  Remo buried his head in his arms.

  Chiun stepped inside and settled into a lotus position before his pupil. He waited.

  "Why can't I do that, Chiun? Why can't I bring back the memory? It's all I have left."

  "Because you know it was only a dream, and you have awakened from it."

  Remo looked up. For the first time since the funeral procession, his face registered emotion. Anguish. His eyes were like old pennies, worn and impossibly sad.

  "I had such plans, Chiun. Sinanju was going to be my home. No more Smith, no more killing. No more of any of it. Why couldn't I be happy? Just once. Finally. After all the shit I've had to live through."

  "Let me explain something to you, Remo," the Master of Sinanju said quietly. "That which you call the 'shit,' that is life. Life is struggle. Do you think happiness can come to one such as you by living peacefully in a small ugly village surrounded by backward peasants? No. Not you. Not I. Why do you think I have lived in America these last two decades? Because I enjoy breathing brown air? To live is to struggle. To continue to exist is to respond to challenge."

  "My life is screwed up," said Remo.

  "You are the finest example of human power to walk the earth in our time-next to me, of course-and you say that your life is screwed up. You belong, not to me, not to Mah-Li, not even to Jilda and little Freya, Remo, but to a greater destiny. You act as if your life is over when truly it is just beginning. "

  "I grew up in an orphanage. Having a family I could call my own was my greatest dream. I'd give up Sinanju for a normal life, a house with a white picket fence, and a wife and kids."

  "No, you would not. You say it, but in your heart you do not mean it."

  "How would you know what I mean?"

  "I know you. Perhaps better than you do yourself."

  "It's such a simple dream," Remo said. "Why can't it come true for me?"

  "I remember when I married," said Chiun. "I, too, was filled with such yearnings. I married young, and my wife, although beautiful on our wedding day, grew shrill and old before her time. Have I ever told you about my wife?"

  "Yeah. And I don't want to hear it again."

  "Too bad. I am going to tell you anyway. In the past, you heard the lessons of past Masters of Sinanju from my lips. Of Wang, of Kung, of little Gi. But I have never told you the great lesson of the Master Chiun."

  "Wrong. I know that one by heart," Remo said bitterly. "Never accept checks."

  "I will ignore that," said Chiun, his squeaky voice dropping into the dramatic tone he used when telling lessons of past Masters. "I have always told you that my wife was barren, and having no heir, I was forced to train the son of my brother-in-law, Nuihc, in the art of Sinanju."

  "Yeah," interrupted Remo. "And Nuihc went off to freelance for himself, sent no tribute back to the village, and you were left without a pupil. Until Smith hired you to train me. And even though I was a white who couldn't keep his elbow straight, you made do. And we took care of Nuihc. But he had trained Purcell, so now we have the same old problem of a renegade Master. He just wears a different face. Did I leave anything out?"

  "How eloquent," Chiun said tartly. "But I have never told
you the full story. About the time I had a son of my own. I will tell you that story now."

  "Go ahead. I'm not going anywhere," Remo said resignedly, but the Master of Sinanju recognized the first stirrings of interest in his voice.

  "The son who was born to me was named Song. He was a fine boy, lean of limb, with skin like tallow and intelligent eyes. I took him as my pupil, of course. And as the years passed, my heart swelled with pride as he learned, first the breathing, then the early exercises. He learned quickly, and the quicker he learned, the faster I pushed him along the path to greatness."

  "Sounds familiar," said Remo.

  "Oh, do not think that I have trained you hard. I have trained you rigorously, but compared to my dead son, Song, you have been loafing through the stages of Sinanju. In truth, I pushed too hard. I have never admitted this to anyone, but I killed my own son."

  "You, Chiun? That's terrible."

  "I did not kill with a stroke, or a blow, or a kick. I did not spill his blood with my own hands. I killed with pride. It was the first day of the spring, when the villagers were flying their kites to welcome the season. My son wished to join them. He was but eight. His ninth summer lay ahead of him, but it would be a summer as dark as night-although no one knew that on the day I tore his kite from his hands and marched him to Mount Paektusan.

  "We stood at the bottom of Mount Paektusan. And I said to my son, 'If you are truly the son of my wife, you will climb Mount Paektusan in one day.' And my son say to me, 'O my father, I cannot. It is too high and my hands are too small.'

  "And I said to him, 'The Master Go climbed Mount Paektusan when he was nine. Before him, no Master had climbed Mount Paektusan before his twelfth summer. I see greatness in you, and unless you wish to give the lie to my judgment, you will climb this peak before your ninth birthday. Begin now.' "

  The Master of Sinanju smoothed the lap of his mourning kimono with thoughtful hands before going on. "Reluctantly my son began his climb. I sat in the melting spring snows to await him. I knew he would not make it on his first try, but I was determined that he would one day succeed, and if necessary, I would bring him to the base of Mount Paektusan every day until he succeeded or the summer rains made me a fool."