Bamboo Dragon td-108

by Warren Murphy

  In fact, the reigning Master of Sinanju seldom asked about the details of a mission, and he never asked about the motivation. For Chiun, it was enough that Dr. Harold Smith—whom he regarded as a powerful, albeit senile and demented emperor—had chosen special targets for elimination. The assassins of Sinanju had been mercenary killers for a thousand years and more. The very motto of Sinanju—Death Feeds Life—spoke volumes from the heart of the assassin's craft.

  Still, Chiun was curious about the pile of weighty reading matter that distracted Remo from the proper study of Ung poetry and breathing exercises. Remo caught him paging through a sixty-five-page monograph on Asian tree frogs, noting Chiun's reaction in the almost microscopic elevation of an eyebrow.

  "I have to play a new role for my latest mission, Little Father," Remo said.

  Chiun responded with an airy wave, dismissing the remark. "Whatever is required," he said. "Emperor Harold Smith knows best." And to himself added, The idiot.

  "What can you tell me about dragons?" Remo asked a moment later.

  "Dragons?"

  "You know, giant lizards breathing fire, that kind of thing."

  "Sarcasm is a poor excuse for discourse," said the Master of Sinanju.

  Remo rolled his eyes at that one. "You've been known to use your share."

  "Nonsense. The Master of Sinanju does not bandy words with fools. I offer wise instruction and correct the faults of those who fail through negligence, stupidity and arrogance. If my instruction shames them, it is only through a private recognition of their own unworthiness."

  "About those dragons… "

  Chiun considered Remo's question for a time before he spoke. "In ancient days," he said at last, "before the Supreme Being attained his pinnacle of achievement by creating the first Korean, it amused him to place monsters on the earth. Their forms were varied and diverse, but most of them were stupid creatures. It is written that a few possessed low cunning and the sort of greed that plagues most non-Koreans to the present day. They killed for sport, as some men do, and hoarded skulls as if old lizard bones had some intrinsic value. Finally, when the creator tired of watching them, he slaughtered most of those he had created to make way for human beings."

  "Slaughtered most?"

  "It is my personal opinion—and most probably the truth—that the creator, driven by his need to see perfection in the flesh, neglected to exterminate the monsters thoroughly. A few survived and hid themselves away in caverns underneath the ground. They watched as men began to multiply and reap undreamed-of harvests from the earth. In time, they threatened man, collecting tribute in the form of gold and silver, precious stones and virgins."

  "Virgins?"

  "Even monsters have to eat," Chiun replied.

  "Of course. I wasn't thinking."

  "A lamentable consistency," the Master of Sinanju said.

  "So, you believe in dragons?" Remo asked.

  "Belief implies a matter of opinion," said Chiun. "A wise man is conversant with the facts of life, reserving his belief for matters of the heart."

  "Excuse me, Little Father. What I meant to ask—"

  "You meant to ask if there are dragons in the earth today," Chiun finished for him. "My experience as Master of Sinanju offers no solution to the question, but there is a story… "

  "Yes?"

  "Before the days of Tamerlane, when Master Kim embodied the perfection of Sinanju, it is written that a foolish dragon tried to victimize the people of my village. He was old, this scaly worm, and knew the ways of lesser men from feasting on their brains. Of course, he did not know Sinanju, any more than a gorilla in the zoo can speak Korean."

  "So, what happened?"

  "Master Kim prevailed with only minimal exertion," said Chiun. "Have you not learned that size means nothing in Sinanju?"

  "Kim went out and killed the dragon?"

  "Master Kim," Chiun corrected him. "If you peruse the early scrolls, you will discover an amusing recipe for lizard stew."

  "I'll pass," said Remo.

  "Such disdain from one who has been known to gorge himself on charred cow's flesh." Chiun scanned the stack of books in front of him. "Is there no information here on dragons?"

  "The authors aren't Korean."

  "And still, their scribblings are accepted as the final word? Incredible."

  "I'm going on a dragon hunt," said Remo. "I'll be gone awhile."

  "It will be difficult to find one in the modern world," said Chiun. "Perhaps impossible."

  "It doesn't matter," Remo told him. "Dr. Smith is more concerned with ringers and uranium."

  A total lunatic, Chiun thought. Aloud he said, "The emperor is always right."

  "I don't suppose you'd want to come along?"

  "Will we be stopping at Sinanju?"

  "Not this time. I'm sorry, Little Father."

  "Is there television?"

  "Almost certainly."

  Chiun thought about it for another moment, finally nodding. "I shall go. If there are dragons to be slain, the Master of Sinanju should be there."

  "My thoughts exactly," Remo said.

  "Of course," Chiun replied. "You recognize perfection, even when it stands beyond your grasp."

  Chapter Four

  It was a mile-long walk from the chaotic central market back to Remo's lodgings at the Hotel Merlin, on Jalan Sultan Ismail. He made the trek on foot, preferring crowds for cover. Also, he wanted to avoid taxis, because he didn't believe in coincidences. And in that case, he could expect other stalkers searching for him on the street. He wasn't followed from the marketplace, but that was little consolation in the present circumstances.

  He was blown. Someone had tried to kill him, and even if the effort was clumsy it was proof positive that Remo's cover had been shot to hell. Logic called for him to scrub the mission, which had been compromised, take Chiun and fly back to the States as soon as possible, but Remo knew he couldn't run away.

  His pride was part of it, a failing that Chiun and all the wisdom of Sinanju were unable to eradicate. And there was Remo's patriotic fervor, still a mystery to Chiun, who couldn't understand why any man—much less a trained assassin—would be anxious to surrender life for something so abstract as "God and country."

  "What is it you love about America?" Chiun had asked his pupil in the early days of their association.

  "I believe," Remo answered, "that this country has given so many people so many chances that it deserves to be protected."

  "Why?" the Master of Sinanju prodded.

  "Because I'm an American."

  And that was that. Despite Chiun's admonitions that a man owed nothing to the country that had framed him for a murder he didn't commit, then staged his execution, drafting him into the service of a cause he didn't choose or fully understand, Remo wouldn't be shaken from the basic tenets of his faith in the United States.

  America was threatened by the proliferation of nuclear arms in unreliable hands. If there was weapons-grade uranium available in the Malaysian jungle, it behooved America's defenders to ensure that none of it wound up in Baghdad, in Tehran, Beirut or any of a hundred other places where an A-bomb could ignite the fuse of global holocaust.

  The job came down to Remo by coincidence, or maybe it was Fate. In either case, he viewed the execution of that duty as a privilege.

  Chiun was watching television in their suite when Remo got there, seated on the floor, a perfect lotus, while he indulged his blossoming fascination for "Love's Secret Flame." This afternoon, it seemed that Whitney Calendar must finally decide between her husband, the philandering Arturo, and the handsome lawyer, Stetson Keating, who admired her none too subtly from a distance.

  "How's it going with the Calendars?"

  "Arturo is an idiot, enslaved by alcohol," said Chiun, "but he has possibilities. This Keating is not good for Whitney."

  "Never trust a lawyer."

  "You state the obvious."

  Remo sat down on the nearest bed and waited for the next commerci
al break. "Somebody tried to kill me in the marketplace," he said when Chiun was momentarily distracted from the tube.

  "A foolish bandit?" Chiun inquired.

  "It was supposed to look that way," said Remo, "but they were assassins."

  "Common thugs," Chiun replied. "If they had truly earned the designation of assassin, they would not be dead."

  "How do you know I killed them?"

  "You are not entirely foolish. Also, you are still alive. How many were there?"

  "Six."

  The Master's smile was tinged with pride, but he recovered in the twinkling of an eye. "So, they were clumsy thugs."

  "I'd like to know who sent them," Remo said. "Right now, I'm flying blind."

  "Trust no one," Chiun advised him, "and you won't be taken by surprise."

  The douche commercial faded and resolved itself into a close-up of a frowning Whitney Calendar. The camera panned across to find Arturo staring at her, sipping from a whiskey glass.

  "The curse of self-indulgence," said Chiun.

  "I'm going now," Remo announced. "Time to meet the others."

  If Chiun heard Remo speak, he gave no sign. His sparkling eyes were focused on the television set once more, his every sense apparently in tune with the fictitious trials and tribulations of the Calendars, McGreevys, Potters and their ilk.

  Chiun's devotion to the soap opera had never ceased to baffle Remo, taken in conjunction with that fine disdain the Master of Sinanju demonstrated for most other things American. If he had not been so familiar with Chiun, the old man's crystal clarity of thought, he might have misjudged Chiun's preoccupation with the soaps as a precursor of senility. Instead, he took it simply as another part of what made Chiun the rare, complex, sometimes infuriating person that he was.

  The door closed softly, locking automatically as Remo left the suite. Behind him, seated on the floor, the Master of Sinanju turned away from Whitney Calendar and faced the door.

  "Trust no one," he said softly, in Korean. "And take care, my son."

  The Shangri-la Hotel was situated some four hundred yards beyond the Merlin and southward, where Jalan P. Ramlee crossed Man Sultan Ismail. It ranked among Kuala Lumpur's newest, most luxurious hotels, with several restaurants and more than seven hundred rooms.

  It seemed to Remo that he wasn't followed on the walk between hotels, but then again, there was no point in tailing him if he was blown. His enemy—or enemies—would simply have to wait for Remo to present himself, an insect blundering into the spiderweb.

  Except that he was not an ordinary insect, this one. He could sting, as they had learned with the attempt on Remo in the marketplace.

  The message had been waiting for him when he checked in at the Hotel Merlin. Dr. Safford Stockwell, Ph.D., requested the pleasure of Dr. Ward's company at 5:00 p.m., to introduce the other members of the expedition and discuss last-minute strategy before departure, first thing in the morning. Remo hadn't bothered to return the call, preferring to remain aloof for now, but he wasn't about to miss the first glimpse of his fellow jungle travelers in the flesh.

  Especially now that one of them had tried to have him killed.

  The expedition's leader occupied suite 413. There was enough time left for Remo to bypass the elevator, taking to the stairs. As he ascended, Remo summed up what he knew of Safford Stockwell from the information passed along by CURE.

  An eminent paleontologist with numerous publications and several major fossil discoveries to his credit, Dr. Stockwell was a Harvard graduate who did his alma mater proud. Of late, his specialty was Asian dinosaurs, which made him perfect for the Tasek Bera expedition. On the downside, he was fifty-eight years old and had confined himself to teaching, with sporadic forays into print, the past six years. Depending on his physical condition, Stockwell might become a burden once they left paved roads and riverboats behind. He didn't figure as a killer, but it was impossible to say with any certainty before they met in person. Age and dwindling economic prospects could be ample motivators for a change of character in later life, especially if the rumors about Stockwell's private life were accurate.

  The rumbles out of Washington, where Stockwell taught at Georgetown and donated time at the Smithsonian, suggested ah affair—some said a soon-to-be-announced engagement—featuring the veteran dinosaur hunter and his protégée, one Audrey Moreland. Blond and beaming in the snapshots Remo had examined, Moreland was a paleobotanist out of UCLA, some twenty-five years Stockwell's junior. They had formed a bond of sorts soon after her arrival on the teaching staff at Georgetown, and it had been only natural for Stockwell to select her as his number two when he was tapped to head up the Malaysian team.

  As for the rumored romance, Remo didn't know or care if the reports were accurate. On balance, he imagined it would make things simpler all around if Dr. Moreland was in love with Stockwell. That way, she would be less likely to go into business for herself and start prospecting for uranium—or hiring killers on the side.

  The fourth floor might have been deserted, judging from the traffic in the hallway. Remo closed the stairwell access door behind him, checked the numbers visible from where he stood and set off to his right, in search of 413. He knew that he was truly in the Orient, when large hotels ignored the superstitious Western terror of "unlucky" numbers.

  "White men," Remo muttered, constantly amused—or angered—by the eccentricities of his own race. But oddly, he was less amused when Chiun made his biting observation.

  He stopped at 413 and hesitated for a moment, listening, his head turned slightly to one side and tilted toward the door. Other people would have heard a murmur of voices and the occasional word, but Remo's senses were heightened through Sinanju training, and the conversation came through, distinct and clear. Four people talking: two of them American, one British, by the sound, and one that could have been a native. Asian, anyway. One of the two Yanks was a woman, with a sultry voice that still possessed a cutting edge.

  "What do we really know about this Dr. Renton Ward?" she asked the others. "I mean, we've never even seen him."

  "Equal footing, there," her fellow countryman replied. "He hasn't seen us, either."

  "You know what I mean," the woman answered, sounding peevish.

  "We were fortunate that anyone could make the trip on such short notice," said the older man who must be Safford Stockwell. "Anyway, I've read his book and several of his monographs. He knows his subject."

  "Even so—"

  The subject of their conversation rapped three times against the door, imagining how easy it would be to put his hand and arm completely through the flimsy wooden panel. That would give them something to discuss around the campfire, but Remo wasn't prepared to discard his cover yet, despite the fact that it was evidently blown. They had a jungle trek ahead of them, and he would have to stay in character as long as possible.

  The door was opened by a walking slab of muscle dressed in khaki. Jungle Jim on steroids, with the sickly sweet aroma of a full-time carnivore exuding from his sunbaked skin. The man was six foot five or six, with sandy hair combed straight back from a face that looked like sculpted leather. He was looking down his nose at Remo, literally, with a pair of cold gray eyes. That nose had taken brutal punishment at one time, and an impressive scar ran from the left eyebrow to the jaw hinge, just below his ear.

  "And you are?"

  Here's the Brit, thought Remo as he answered, "Renton Ward."

  An older man stepped forward, easing past the hulk and offering his hand. The grip was firm enough, but there was no real strength behind it.

  "Dr. Ward, come in, please. We were just discussing you."

  "That explains it, then," said Remo.

  "Sorry?"

  "Why my ears were burning."

  "Ah." Confusion flickered for an instant in the aging academic's eyes before he shook it off and introduced himself. "I'm Dr. Stockwell. Safford Stockwell."

  Fearless leader, Remo thought, as if I couldn't guess. The man was fift
y-eight, according to his file, but could have passed for ten years older at a glance. White hair, receding in a George Bush pattern, and a face that seemed to droop, with wattles showing underneath his chin. Whatever muscle tone and color Stockwell had acquired from years of fieldwork, chasing dinosaur remains, had long since vanished under the fluorescent classroom lights. He might be stronger than he looked, of course, but Remo guessed that he would burn out early on the trail, become a major burden if their group encountered any major obstacles requiring physical exertion.

  "My assistant, Dr. Moreland."

  Stockwell made the introduction with a flourish, not quite showing off his prize, but close enough.

  And what a prize she was. A honey blonde, blue eyes that gave her angel face a hint of something more sophisticated, verging on exotic. World-class breasts, unfettered beneath a Thai silk blouse. Legs better suited to the runway at a fashion show than any jungle game trail.

  "Call me Audrey, please."

  "My pleasure. Renton Ward."

  Her mentor stepped between them, steering Remo toward the hulk who manned the door. "Pike Chalmers," Stockwell said. "Our designated troubleshooter, if you will."

  Some kind of military background there, thought Remo. Maybe service as a mercenary, once he pulled the pin. Pike Chalmers had the look of someone who enjoyed the act of killing for its own sake, as a form of sport.

  The hand he offered Remo could have doubled for a catcher's mitt. His grip would be a calculated crusher, showing off, and Remo braced himself, prepared for anything.

  "So, you're the reptile man," said Chalmers, tightening his grip.

  "That's right."

  The trick was not resistance or brute force, but a strategic application of sufficient pressure to the carpal nerves and tendons. Remo felt the big man's knuckles crunch together like ball bearings, but restrained himself from breaking any bones. The big man grimaced and retrieved his hand, concealing it behind his back as he began to flex the fingers, testing them for damage.

  "And, of course, our escort from the Ministry of the Interior," said Stockwell, guiding Remo toward a slim Malaysian in his thirties. "Second Deputy Sibu Bintulu Sandakan."