There were times in the past when Remo would have fought Chiun's dragon. But theirs was now a long association, and Remo had learned to get along. So what if he had to paint a dragon? It was a small thing to do for the man who had transformed Remo Williams from a still-breathing dead man to the sole heir to the House of Sinanju.
It had been so long ago Remo had forgotten the year. He no longer thought in years anyway. That was Western. Remo wasn't completely Eastern, but a subtle blend of East and West.
In the days when he had been Remo Williams, Newark beat cop, all Remo knew about the East was soaked up during a tour in Vietnam. Turning in his Marine fatigues for city-cop blues, Remo had settled down to the perfectly ordinary life of a police officer.
The day the stony-faced detectives arrested him changed all that. He was charged with the beating death of a pusher-another name he had forgotten. Faster than he could absorb events, Remo was tried, convicted and given the seat of dishonor in the Death House.
He woke up, not dead but in a place called Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York. He was soon to discover it was the cover for CURE, the organization that had framed him. Just as he was slowly realizing the electric chair had been rigged to deliver a nonlethal charge.
They put him in the hands of Chiun, the last Master of Sinanju. He wasn't given a choice. Since he was already dead and buried in the eyes of the world, finishing the job was just a matter of plunging a charged needle in his arm and dumping him into the still-fresh grave with his name on it.
Remo had never heard of Sinanju before that day so long ago. He learned that Sinanju was the name of a tiny fishing village in North Korea, which in turn became the seat of the House of Sinanju, a line of assassins that stretched back some five thousand years. But most of all, Sinanju was the name of the martial-arts discipline practiced by the Masters of Sinanju-village and house.
Remo had been selected to be the first Westerner to be taught the secrets of Sinanju. It sounded cool when Remo had first had it explained to him.
"Is this like kung fu?" Remo asked Chiun.
"What do you know of kung fu?" Chiun snapped.
"Bruce Lee does it in movies. Five guys jump him, and he sends them flying in all directions."
Chiun's bright hazel eyes had narrowed in a look Remo would learn to fear. "You enjoy seeing men fly in all directions?"
"Sure."
And getting up from his lotus position on the Folcroft gym floor, Chiun had obliged Remo. By throwing him in all directions.
A half hour of being bounced off assorted walls taught Remo a very valuable lesson.
One, do not piss off Chiun.
Two, never mention Bruce Lee or kung fu ever again.
The first eye-opening lessons. It made Remo almost nostalgic thinking about them.
Remo soon learned that kung fu, not to mention karate, judo and aikido were all lifted without benefit of payment or credit from Sinanju, which was the sun source of the martial arts.
He then learned what to put into his mouth and what not to put into his mouth. He learned to breathe correctly, from the stomach, not through the lungs exclusively. He learned the first exercises that seemed pointless, and he ate tons of bitter kimchi to purge the fats and sugars that had poisoned his system.
It was long and painful, and Remo never realized he had sloughed off the first outer scales of his Western skin until long after it had happened. By then there was no turning back for either of them.
It was so long ago. An American President had seen his nation fragment into unweldable pieces. Because the title of his stationery said President of the United States of America, he felt obliged to put the country back together.
CURE was created. Secret, funded by hidden budget money, unknown to all except the chief executive, its director, Harold Smith, and later Remo and Chiun, it was the unofficial instrument for correcting America's many ills.
Ills that, by the time the President had perished by an assassin's hand, had grown unchecked and seemingly uncheckable.
Harold Smith had turned to the East to save the greatest nation of the New World. He turned to Chiun, ancient, childless, pupilless-the fading fragment of a former glory.
The East thought Sinanju passed into memory. The West knew nothing of it. It was the perfect solution. America needed an assassin. Sinanju required continuity. A bargain was struck. A dead man would be trained in the forbidden art that was soon to die. No face was lost on either side. All was secret.
And Remo had learned, becoming an assassin and, in time, much more. He became Sinanju, capable of feats of strength, skill and reflex ordinary mortals were only capable of in rare moments of crisis. For Sinanju opened up the entire brain to its full potential. An awakened brain in turn unleashed the dull muscles and inhibited senses.
If a human being could accomplish it, Remo could surpass it. He saw more clearly and much farther than other men. His reflexes were as sharp as those of many predators. His strength and agility exceeded human tolerances.
All this, Chiun had done for him. And if, so many years into their relationship, he had to have a dragon on his side of the family APC, Remo was going to give it to him.
The trouble was, there was nothing in the discipline of Sinanju that imparted artistic skills. Oh, Chiun had tried to teach Remo the slashing ideographic characters used by the ancient Sinanju Masters to record their mighty deeds. But he had failed. Remo proved more adept at the relatively modern Hangul alphabet, which Chiun considered crude and inexpressive.
But if Chiun wanted a dragon, Remo would give him one. For he loved the Master of Sinanju with all his heart.
And above all, he was absolutely, positively not growing talons.
Chapter 3
Dr. Harold W Smith stood by the automatic glass doors at Boston's South Station waiting room, expecting his train to be called. He had already figured out the track. An Amtrak train had pulled into track 7. It was the only silver train with the red-and-white-and-blue Amtrak stripe running down its length in the station. The other trains were all emblazoned with the hideous purple-and-yellow MBTA livery-local commuter trains. People were glancing up at the big electronic departure board anxiously, waiting for the track to be posted. That information was abundantly selfevident. Yet they loitered by the big board while Smith hovered by the doors. It would be just a matter of being one of the first out the door.
That way, Smith was assured of a seat. He had to have a seat. It was a four-hour trip back, and he couldn't afford to waste the time.
It was surprising how crowded the train had been coming up. People actually stood in the aisles. It wasn't a holiday or weekend. It was just an ordinary Tuesday in midsummer.
Smith himself had to stand until New Haven, where the train stopped as the electric engine was switched for a diesel. He understood that once the Northeast Corridor was fully electrified, the fifteen-minute delay would be a thing of the past.
As soon as the Yankee Clipper emptied out at New Haven, Smith had dropped into a vacant seat. Just in time. The train had filled up again within minutes and remained packed all the way to Boston.
Smith was taking no chances on the return trip. His arthritic knee was acting up again. And if he stood, he could not work. Harold Smith detested idleness, a reflection of his cheerless New England upbringing.
When the announcer finally called, "All Aboard for the Merchant's Limited, " Smith made an unseemly dash for the door. The doors parted, and he hurried down the track to duck into a no-smoking car.
Selecting a comfortable window seat, he settled in, his well-worn briefcase balanced tightly in his lap. By habit, he took the seat next to one of the emergency window exits. Harold Smith never took undue chances with his life. If he died, CURE would have to shut down. America could not afford that just yet.
The coach soon filled up.
A large black woman in a purple print dress waddled up the aisle and stopped at Smith's row.
"Is this the catbird seat?" she demanded, poin
ting at the empty seat next to Smith.
"What?"
"I'm looking for the catbird seat."
"I do not know what you are talking about," Smith protested.
"Looks to me like the catbird seat, so I might as well take it."
The woman dropped into the empty seat beside him and by way of introduction dug a meaty elbow into Smith's lathlike ribs.
"Excuse me," Smith said, squirming in his seat.
"You're excused," the woman said, unperturbed. "What did you do anyway?"
"I did nothing."
"Then why'd you excuse yourself?"
"Your elbow is in my side," Smith said uncomfortably.
"Is that supposed to be a dig?"
"Excuse me?"
"There you go again. Now what's wrong?"
"Your elbow is still in my side."
"I can stand to lose a few pounds. I will be the first to admit it. But these train people don't make the seats big enough to accommodate those of us of the ample persuasion. If you take my meaning. Ain't nothing can be done about it, honey. I tried dieting. I tried not eating. Oprah I ain't."
Smith looked around for another seat. But there was none. Craning his head, he tried to see into the cars behind him. People were coming down the aisles, wearing that worried look that told him there were no seats to be had.
"Now who's squirming?" the woman asked.
"Sorry," said Smith.
"That's better. You settle down now, and we'll get along fine. Like the man say, you got to go along to get along."
The train lurched into motion, and Harold Smith watched the station fall away. Gathering speed, the Merchant's Limited rattled past an iron monstrosity of a bridge that looked as if it had been built by medieval ironworkers. There was a brief stop at Back Bay Station. As the suburbs of Boston began clicking by, the train picked up speed.
Smith waited until the conductor had collected his ticket before trying to open his briefcase.
"Need help with that?" his seatmate asked.
"I can manage."
"Just 'cause I'm a woman don't mean I ain't strong. You look like you could use a hand."
"I am fine."
"You don't look, sound or act like it," the woman said doubtfully.
Smith turned the briefcase sideways, then the long way, but given the way the woman in the adjoining seat was spilling over into his seat, it was impossible to move his arms usefully.
Smith had to be careful. The briefcase was boobytrapped. If unlocked incorrectly, explosive charges would detonate, destroying its contents. Not to mention Smith and anyone in a ten-foot radius.
"You gonna stop fussing any time soon?" Smith's fellow passenger said thinly.
Smith sighed. "Yes. I am done."
"Good. But it still ain't open."
"I changed my mind."
"I don't blame you for giving up. I'm that way about childproof caps myself. You know, I think the companies got it all backward. They should sell medicine in chocolate boxes and chocolate in childproof bottles. If they did that, my life would be a whole lot tidier, and I'd fit into this damn seat to boot."
Smith stared out the window, watching the familiar undulating stone fences and granite outcroppings of New England pass by. They reminded him of his upbringing. Only Harold Smith could be moved to quiet nostalgia by the sight of hard, unromantic granite. But that was the kind of person he was.
At Providence, Smith waited patiently. Hardly anyone got off, but several people got on, all looking disappointed at the lack of empty seats.
"I know that look you wearing," the woman beside him said.
"What is that?"
"You were hoping I was getting off here. Well, I ain't. So you can just get over it."
"I do not know what you are talking about," Smith said stiffly.
"You ain't hardly spoke to me all this time. You ignoring me. That's fine. I been ignored before. It won't hurt me. But this ain't my stop, so don't get all hopeful-faced on me."
The train started up again. It rolled out of the station and into the light of day, diesel engine laboring.
Smith cleared his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed like a yo-yo.
The woman eyed him skeptically. "Something on your mind?"
"No."
"The next stop ain't my stop, either. If this is the catbird seat, like I hope it is, I ain't getting off until the accident."
Smith blinked. "What accident?"
"The accident what's gonna happen."
"How do you know an accident is going to happen?" Smith asked sharply.
"Because one always does on these things. Don't you read the newspapers?"
"Yes. But the accidents are entirely random. There is no predicting them."
"Well, it can't be random enough to suit me. I just want to have my accident and stop riding these damn rattletrap things."
Smith thin jaw sagged. "You want an accident?"
"As God is my copilot."
"Why?"
"For the insurance money, why else? You think I like riding these stuffy old coaches? Hah! Not likely. Once I file my claim, I fly first-class all the rest of my days. No more having my insides shook up in one of these rattlers."
"And if there is no accident?"
The woman shrugged. "Then I guess I ride this damn thing all the way back and start saving up for the next run."
"Madam," said Harold Smith.
"Yeah?"
"You are a fool."
"Maybe. But I'm in the catbird seat, and so are you. Just hope you got the strength in your skinny old body to open that window exit."
Smith said nothing. He was thinking.
For a year now he had been tracking the rash of rail disasters plaguing the nation's railroad system, attempting to glean a pattern or purpose to the unusual surge of derailments and train wrecks.
His computers had found nothing significant, other than the statistical quirk of so many incidents over such a long time.
Smith was a student of statistics, going back to his pre-CURE days at the CIA, where he'd been a data analyst. He understood probabilities, coincidences, cluster effects and other statistical phenomena that the superstitious attributed to everything from bad astrological conjunctions to sunspots.
He understood it was possible that these disasters were simply a run of bad luck aggravated by the declining state of the nation's web of rails.
But Smith also understood the longer the phenomenon persisted, the less likely mere happenstance could be blamed. The longer the list of statistics grew, the less likely the reasons were purely statistical.
Smith had been close to sending Remo and Chiun into the field to look into the problem, when abruptly the string of disasters had stopped. It was a hopeful sign. It had lasted three months so far. If it continued, it meant the worst was over.
Now Smith found himself seated next to a woman who was expecting an accident.
"What makes you think there will be an accident on this particular line?" Smith asked carefully.
"'Cause one ain't happened yet."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said, one ain't happened on this stretch yet. They been happening elsewhere but not here. So I figure to ride this line until I get lucky. Something bad's bound to happen."
Smith swallowed hard. "If you are referring to the rash of derailments, they appear to have stopped."
"They didn't stop in Texas."
"Texas?"
"There was a big train wreck in Texas last night. Ain't you heard?"
Smith blinked. He had not. He began every day scanning AP wire-service feeds off his computer links. There had been no derailment reported in the morning feeds.
"Are you certain of your facts?" he asked the woman.
"I got eyes. I can read. A freight train slammed into the yards at Texarkana. Made a damn mess, too. Saw it all on the TV."
"Pardon me," said Smith, wriggling in his seat.
Carefully he undid the catches and opened the brie
fcase, exposing his portable computer system with its satellite phone uplink to the big mainframes housed in the basement of Folcroft Sanitarium, the headquarters for CURE.
"What's that?"
"My laptop," Smith said brusquely.
"I think you need more lap than you got."
Initializing the system, Smith dialed up his mainframes and, that done, called up the AP wire.
It was the first item.
Freight Accident -Texarkana, Texas (AP)
A Southern Pacific freight train crashed into a sport jeep stalled at a crossing grade in Big Sandy, Texas, destroying it. Out of control, the train barreled on east to the Texarkana freight yards for some fifty miles, where it crashed. The engineer was decapitated in the crash. National Transportation Safety Board officials are investigating the cause of the accident.
Smith's prim, bloodless mouth thinned. Loss of life was minimal, he was pleased to see. Oddly there was no word of the driver of the demolished utility jeep. Presumably he had survived.
By all accounts it was a man-made tragedy. A driver had caused it by his reckless attempt to beat a freight train. It was a mistake so common that when Smith analyzed past train accidents he factored those out as statistically meaningless.
"They'll never replace papers," the woman said suddenly.
Smith looked up. "I did not catch that," he said thinly.
"I say, that thing will never replace the newspapers. I don't care how many trees gotta die. Newspapers don't need batteries. Mark my words. The information superhighway is gonna end up sprouting weeds from every crack."
"I see," said Smith, slipping back into thought.
The conductor was coming down the aisle calling out the next stop.
"Mystic. Mystic next! Exit to the rear. Mystic, Connecticut-five minutes."
The train had been humming along the track, doing 120 miles per hour. There was none of the familiar clickety-clack of the trucks on the rail sections. This was CWR track--continuous welded rail. The coach shook and shimmied monotonously.
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