Chinese Puzzle td-3

by Warren Murphy

  No. They would ask him to terminate Remo. The fools. But that was the nature of white men. Why, in just thirty or forty years, Remo probably could come close to Chiun, and if he discovered some locked-up hidden power, might even surpass him.

  But would the white man wait thirty years? Oh, no. Thirty years was forever to a white man.

  A waiter walked up and stood between Chiun and Remo's table. Chiun removed the waiter from his vision, by putting him in a seat. With a broken shoulder. Then Chiun saw the brownish spit on the side of the tablecloth where Remo had been sitting. He asked the waiter where Remo had gone. The waiter said he did not know.

  In the mirrors over the front entrance door, Chiun saw a group of men in Chinese waiters' garb spill out of a side door into the main dining area, heading for him.

  They did not come to offer assistance. They came to make people uncomfortable. Two of them immediately stopped making Chiun uncomfortable, because they had to attend to their lungs. Their lungs needed attention because they had been punctured by their ribs.

  Patrons screamed and huddled against the formica walls of dining booths, as one man came racing at Chiun waving a cleaver over his head. He kept going. So did the cleaver. So did his head. His head rolled. His body gushed blood all the way to the crowd that suddenly was not a crowd. The cleaver landed onto a table next to a tureen of won ton soup. The head rolled to a stop at the feet of the vice president of the Mamaroneck Hadassah.

  And into the din, beyond all voices, spoke Chiun:

  "I am the Master of Sinanju, fools. How dare you?"

  "No," screamed the waiter and huddled fearfully into a corner of the booth.

  "Where is my child that you have taken from me?"

  "What child, oh, Master of Sinanju?" said the cowering waiter.

  "The white man."

  "He is dead of fatal essences."

  "Fool. Do you think his body would entertain them? Where is he?"

  With his good arm, the waiter pointed to a wall with a large relief of the city of Canton.

  "Wait here and speak to no one," Chiun ordered. "You are my slave."

  "Yes, Master of Sinanju."

  To the bas relief went Chiun, and through its interlocking mechanism went the terrible swift hand, ignited in all the fury of its art. But there was no one left in the restaurant to see him. Only the terrified slave who sobbed in a corner. And he, of course would wait for his master. The Master of Sinanju.

  General Liu saw his loved one coming down the passageway in the dank hallway with the rest of the group, the old Chinese man and two waiters bearing the impossible one.

  He had been waiting, hearing the minute by minute reports of the message given, the poison served, the poison eaten, and then an eternity before the impossible one passed out.

  Now it was all worth it. He was captured and would soon be dead. And she was here. The delicate, fragrant blossom. The one sweet joy of his hard and bitter life.

  "Mei Soong," he said, and brushed past the scurrying water waiters and past the old man. "It's been so long, darling."

  Her lips were moist with American lip paste, her dress was of frail material which clung more luxuriously to her young vibrant body. General Liu clutched her to his chest and whispered, "Come with me. It has been so long."

  The old Chinese man, seeing the general trundle off with his wife, called out: "What shall we do with this one, comrade general?" and rubbed his hands nervously. The air was very hot in the passageway. He could scarcely breathe.

  "He's hall dead already. Finish him off." And the general disappeared into his little room, tugging Mei Soong along behind him.

  Then the old Chinese man was in the hall way with the white man held up by the two waiters. He nodded to an adjacent door, and drew from his pocket a ring of many keys. Finding one special key, he inserted it in the lock of the wooden door.

  It opened easily, revealing a small chamber and an altar lit by flickering candles. A pale porcelain Buddha sat content at the apex of the altar. The room smelled of incense, burned in the memory of years of incense and daily devotions.

  "On the floor," said the old man. Put him on the floor. And say nothing of this room to anyone. Do you understand? Say nothing."

  When the waiters had left, shutting the door tightly behind them, the old man went to the altar and bowed once.

  There were always new philosophies in China but always there was China, and if the new regime looked scornfully upon devotions to gods other than material dialectics, still it would accept the other gods one day, just as all the new regimes eventually accepted all the old gods of China.

  Mao was China today. But so was Buddha. And so were the ancestors of the old man.

  From his suit pocket, he removed a small dagger and returned to where the white man lay. Perhaps the night tigers of Sinanju were of gods no more, and the master gone with them, and Shiva, the white Destroyer, come and gone where all had gone before.

  It was a fine knife, of steel from the black forests of Germany, sold by a German major for many times its worth in jade when the Germans and the Americans and the Russians and the British and the Japanese buried their differences to press the face of China further into the mud.

  The major had given the knife. Now, the old man would return it to the white race blade first. The black wooden handle was wet in his palm as the old man pressed the point to the white throat. He would plunge it straight in, then rip to one side, then rip to the other, and then step away to watch the blood flow.

  The face seemed strangely strong in its sleep, the eyes deep behind their closed lids, the lips thin and well-defined. Was this the face of Shiva?

  Of course not. He was about to die.

  "Father and grandfather, and for your fathers and their fathers before them," the old man intoned. "For the indignities upon indignities suffered from these barbarians."

  The old man knelt so that he would bring the full force of his shoulder behind the blade. The floor was hard and cold. But the face of the white man was growing pink, then red, as though filled with blood before blood was spilled. A brownish line formed between the thin lips. The old man looked closer. Was it his imagination? He seemed to feel the heat of the body about to die. The line became a dark brown dot on the lower lip, then an elongated puddle that flowed to the sides, then a stream, and then a gush as the face turned red and the body heaved, and out, coming out on the floor, out of the body's system was the oyster sauce and the beef and with it, the poison essences, mixed with the body's fluid and smelling like oysters and vinegar. The man should have been dead. He should have been dead. But his body was rejecting the poison.

  "Aiee," screamed the old man," it is Shiva the destroyer."

  With a last desperate effort, he raised the knife for the most forceful plunge he could effect. A last chance was better than none at all. But at the knife's apex, a voice filled the basement in thunder.

  "I am the Master of Sinanju, fools. How dare you? Where is my child whom I have made with my heart and with my mind and with my will? I have come for my child. How will you die? Now you shall fear death because it is the death brought by the Master of Sinanju."

  Outside the door to the little room, servants were screaming directions. "There, there. He is in there."

  The old man did not wait.

  The dagger came down swiftly and hard, with all his strength. But it did not plunge straight down. Instead, it created an arc to his own heart. It was pain and hot and shocking to his essence. But it was true to its mark and of all his pain, all the pain would not be so bad as punishment from the Master of Sinanju. He tried to twist the knife further into his own heart as his body trembled. But he could not. And it was not necessary. He saw the cold stone floor coming toward him and he prepared to greet his ancestors.

  Remo came to with a bony knee in his back. He was facing the floor. Someone had vomited on the floor. Someone had also bled on the floor. A hand was slapping his neck sharply. He attempted to spin, cracking the sla
pper in the groin to render him harmless. When he was unable to do this, he knew it was Chiun slapping him.

  "Eat, eat. Gobble like a pig. You should have died, it would have taught you a most lasting lesson."

  "Where am I?" said Remo.

  Slap. Slap. "Why should one who eats like a white man care?"

  Slap. Slap.

  "I am a white man."

  Slap. Slap. "Do not remind me, fool. I have already been made painfully aware of that. Do not eat slowly. Do not taste your food. Gobble. Gobble like a buzzard. Stick your long beak into the food and inhale." Slap. Slap.

  "I'm okay now."

  Slap. Slap. "I give you the best years of my life and what do you do?"

  Remo had raised himself to his knees. Momentarily, during the pounding on his neck, he thought he could perhaps get a sideband crack at Chiun's jaw, but abandoned the notion. So he let Chiun slap away until Chiun was satisfied that Remo was breathing properly again.

  "And what do you do? After all my careful teaching? Hah. You eat like a white man."

  "It was really great beef in oyster sauce."

  "Pig. Pig. Pig." The word came with the slaps. "Eat like a pig. Die like a dog."

  Remo saw the old man lying face down in a layer of blood, that was already darkening about the edges.

  "You do the old man?" he asked.

  "No. He was smart."

  "He looks it," Remo said.

  "He understood what would happen. And chose the wise course."

  "Nobody as smart as you Orientals."

  With a last ringing slap, Chiun finished his work. "Stand up," he ordered. Remo rose, feeling like the pavement during the Indianapolis 500. He blinked his eyes, breathed deeply a few times. And felt quite fine.

  "Ecch," he said, noticing the stains of vomit on his shirt. "They must have had knockout drops in the food."

  "It is lucky for you," lied Chiun, "that it was not a deadly poison. For if you thought you could survive poison, you would never end your foolish eating ways."

  "It was deadly poison, then," Remo said smiling.

  "It was not," Chiun insisted.

  Remo smiled broadly, straightened his tie, and glanced around the room. "This the basement of the restaurant?"

  "Why? Are you hungry?"

  "We've got to find Mei Soong. If she's with the general, she might be trying to kill him right now. She's one of them, remember. And the general's in danger."

  Chiun gave an abrupt snort, opened the door, and stepped over the two bodies lying outside in a hallway that smelled of musk. Remo noticed that the wooden door had been splintered away from its lock.

  Chiun moved like silence in the dark, and Remo followed as he had been taught, in sideways steps along the corridor, in perfect rhythm with the old man before him.

  Remo stopped when Chiun stopped. In electric fast movement, Chiun's hand snapped against a door which flung open, momentarily blinding Remo with the light from within. On a plain cot, the hard, yellow, muscled back of a man was on the rise. Two young legs wrapped around his waist. His black hair was crossed with white. Remo saw the soles of Mei Soong's feet.

  "Quick, Chiun," he said. "Think of something philosophical."

  The man's head spun around in shock. It was General Liu.

  "Uh, hello," Remo said.

  Chiun spoke, "Have you no shame? Get dressed."

  General Liu unplugged with speed and lunged for a .45 caliber automatic on the plain wooden chair. Remo was at the chair in a flash, catching General Liu's arm at the wrist and righting him so he would not fall.

  "We're friends," Remo said. "That woman has betrayed you. She is in league with those who captured you and held you prisoner."

  Mei Soong rose on her arms, a look of surprise, then of terror on her face. "Untrue," she screamed.

  Remo turned to her, and since the movement of the .45 automatic was not to him, he did not respond with automatic movement, but then heard the crack as he saw the top of her head blasted into the stone wall, splattering blood and gray matter, leaving her brain like a coddled egg about to be eaten from the shell of her skull.

  He snatched the gun from General Liu.

  "She betrayed me," said General Liu, trembling. Then he fell down and sobbed.

  It would not be until he strolled a Peking street that Remo would realize that the general's tears were from relieved tension, and that indeed, Remo had been a very poor detective. He watched Liu fall to his knees and bring his hands to his face, heaving, sobbing.

  "Poor bastard. All this and then his wife betraying him too," Remo whispered to Chiun.

  Chiun responded with a phrase carrying a very special meaning. "Gonsa shmuck," he said.

  "What?" said Remo, not really hearing.

  "In English, that means very much a shmuck."

  "Poor bastard," said Remo.

  "Shmuck," said Chiun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The President's heart was lighter as he watched the newscast. His closest advisor watched also, twisting an index finger through his kinky blond hair.

  They sat in the office in deep leather chairs. The President's shoes were off and he twiddled his toes on the hassock. To the right of his left big toe was the advisor's face on the television screen, saying that he would make a trip to Peking and accompany the Premier back to the United States.

  "The trip is carefully planned and thorough. Everything will be routine," the voice intoned on TV.

  "A routine bit of incredible luck," the President interjected.

  A reporter asked the TV face a question. "Will events in China now influence the trip?" he said.

  "The Premier's journey is proceeding according to schedule and plans. What is happening in China now influences it in no way."

  The President framed his advisor's face between his two big toes. "Now that General Liu is returning with you."

  The advisor smiled and turned to the President: "Sir, just how did we find General Liu? The FBI, the CIA, Treasury, everyone says they had nothing to do with it. The CIA wants to guard him now."

  "No," the President said. "They will all be busy trying to track down those two men who kidnapped the general. The General will go back to Peking with you. He will be with two men. They will take the rear of your plane."

  "I take it you have some special agents I know nothing about."

  "Professor. Once I could have answered that question. Today, I'm not even sure. And that's all I can say." The President glanced at his watch. "It's almost eight o'clock. Please go now."

  "Yes, Mr. President," said the aide, arising with his briefcase. They shook hands and smiled. Perhaps peace, a realistic peace, might yet be achieved by man. Wishing or running rampant in parks with peace symbols would not bring it, however. It would come if one worked and schemed and plotted for peace, just as one did for victory in war.

  "It looks good, Mr. President," the aide said.

  "It looks good. Good night."

  "Good night sir," said the aide and left. The white door shut behind him. And the President listened as various people spoke of Phase Two of his economic Policy. There were five people with five different opinions. It sounded like a meeting of his economic advisors. Well, it was a great country and no President could do it much harm.

  The second hand on his watch circled the six and headed up past the seven and nine and eleven, then met the twelve, and there was no ring. God Bless you, Smith, wherever you are, thought the President.

  Then the special line rang, like a symphony of bells, and the President hopped from his chair and soft-footed it to his desk. He picked up the receiver on the special phone.

  "Yes," he said.

  "In answer to your question of two days ago, sir," came the lemony voice, "we will continue but under different circumstances. Something didn't work. I will not tell you what, but it did not work. So in the future, do not even bother to ask for the use of that person."

  "Is there some way we can let him know of his nation's gratitude."r />
  "No. As a matter of fact, he is incredibly lucky to be alive."

  "I have seen pictures of him from agents tailing Mei Soong. One of them was killed in a karate school. Your man was seen."

  "It will not matter. He will not look like that any longer after he returns."

  "I do wish there was some recognition, some reward we could give him."

  "He's alive, Mr. President. Is there anything else you wish to discuss?"

  "No, no. Just tell him thank you from me. And thank you for letting him deliver the general safely to his destination."

  "Goodbye, Mr. President."

  The President hung up the phone. And he chose to believe, because he wanted to believe, that America still had men like Smith and the man who worked for Smith. The Nation produced men like that. And it would survive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Remo was uncomfortable.

  Peking was making him edgy. Everywhere he and Chiun went with their escorts, people noticed them, and stared. Now it was not the noticing that made him uncomfortable, not that. Their eyes were telling him something, even in the crowded shopping areas, the broad pin-neat streets. But he didn't know what.

  And something else was bothering him. They had delivered General Liu and received thanks. Two Chinese generals of Liu's Army had looked at Remo very closely and mumbled with Liu. And one of them had said, in obviously mistaken English, "Destroyer . .. Shiva," which was probably a Navy captain or something.

  And that afternoon, they would formally be shown the Working People's Palace of Culture, in the Forbidden City, as a special honour.

  Chiun was unimpressed with the honour. He had been noticeably cool ever since Remo had expressed heartfelt hurt that Chiun would kill him. Chiun was emotionally distressed that Remo would take it that way.

  It had come to a head after Remo had telephoned Smith to tell him the mission was successful. Smith had been silent for a long moment, and then had ordered Remo to tell Chiun his blue butterflies had arrived.