Warren Murphy: Troubled Waters

Remo guffawed. "Kidd? As in Captain Kidd? Come on!"

"Don't laugh at my family name, swine!"

"Oh, sorry, I'll try to show a little respect for the human slime that drips from your family tree. I got news for you, Cap'n-rapists and murderers are nothing but scumbags, even if they did wear white puffy shirts."

Kidd made a guttural noise of fury and charged Remo with bare fists.

At that moment the killing ground was shattered by a piercing sound like a doggie squeeze-toy played through the amplifiers at a rock concert. "Hold!" Remo knew better than to disobey a thundersqueak like that. He put out one hand and gripped Captain Kidd by the scalp. Kidd flailed at Remo's face, then his arms. Remo lifted him high enough off the ground that further struggles caused excruciating scalp pain.

"Do not dare to kill that man, Remo Williams!"

"I'm not, see!" Remo shot back. "But why, I wanna know?"

"He must be questioned," Chiun, Master Emeritus of Sinanju, declared solemnly.

Huh, thought Remo. He could feel it coming. Finally. "This guy's got nothing to tell us. And Smitty wants him dead."

"You do not know this," Chiun retorted.

"Have you see my official job description? It's just two words-'Kill people.' If Smitty sends me after somebody, I'm supposed to assassinate 'em and that's that."

Chiun stood before him. "And you'll get the chance, but first we talk."

"I will tell you nothing, cook!" Kidd said through gritted teeth as he struggled in Remo's grip.

"This is the Island of Many Skulls," Chiun said matter-of-factly.

Captain Kidd stopped struggling. He hung there, almost on his tiptoes with his face and neck stretched out absurdly by the hold Remo had on the top of his head. All that was ignored now as he gazed wide-eyed at Chiun.

After a moment, Kidd said one word in a near whisper. "Sinanju!"

Chiun's head moved in the briefest of nods. "You are the Master?"

Chiun nodded again.

"Hey, I am, too," Remo spoke up.

"Actually, he is simply the Reigning Master," Chiun explained. "I am the Master Emeritus."

"Oh, brother." Remo rolled his eyes.

Kidd looked from Chiun to Remo and back again. "You killed my great-great-great-grandfather!"

"Not me personally," Chiun said, frowning with his forehead. "But one of my own forebears rid this part of the world of the man who settled this island once, centuries ago."

"You stole the family fortune!" Kidd shouted.

"You stole it first," Chiun retorted. "How many human beings died because the Kidd pirates lusted for trinkets and females?"

"We lived by a code of honor and discipline!"

"So does the Mafia and they're slime, too," Remo said. "I knew you had some secret going on, Chiun. Are you telling me one of the Masters was on this island fighting pirates?"

"Yes. Once. There is something you should know," Chiun added with quiet amusement. "The gold that belonged to the Kidd pirates never left the island."

Kidd looked as if he had just been slapped. "Liar!" he retorted hotly.

"A Master of Sinanju never lies," Chiun responded.

Remo snorted. Chiun gave him a glare and continued.

"My ancestor found where the chests were dug up," Kidd rattled off. "They searched everywhere. There was no trace of any other digging. They knew the island, every square inch of it. If the gold was here they would have found it."

"But the Master was still here," Chiun said. "And when he was bored with their games he wiped them out. Would he leave with the gold and come back again?"

"Yes! He must have!" Kidd replied fiercely.

"No."

"We know he left without the gold after murdering my ancestors-that is how the family history tells it! He did not have the gold then!"

"Correct," Chiun said.

"So it must have been removed prior to that!"

"Incorrect."

"No, no, we would have found it. They searched. They came back and searched again. Even though we stopped pirating, my family came here for three generations, always searching for the treasure. If it was here, it would have been found!"

Kidd was emphatic. To believe that the treasure had always been right under his nose for all these years was simply too bitter a pill.

Hands in his kimono sleeves, a slight smile touching his mouth, the tiny, ancient Korean man said, "It is here."

"Where, then? Prove it!"

The smile became slightly more amused. "It was never removed from where your ancestor buried it. My ancestor simply dug deeper into the hole that the old Kidd made for it."

"No. My ancestors thought of that. There's the water table. If you try to go deeper, the water just makes the hole keep filling itself in again with sand. It's impossible to penetrate any deeper."

"Impossible for you. Impossible for your fleabitten ancestors. No problem for a Master of Sinanju."

Kidd sneered. "You lie."

"No."

"Prove it."

Chiun sighed. "If I must."

"What? Huh? Why can't we just kill him now?" Remo demanded, his patience running thin.

Chiun shot him a baleful look, but his voice was almost buttery. "This man deserves to know his heritage before he is removed from this world. We'll allow him to see the gold of his ancestors before he goes. Remo, take him."

"Why don't you take him?"

Chiun wrinkled his nose. "I think not. He has soiled himself."

Indeed, although Kidd himself had hardly noticed it, the stew had finally caught up with him, and his baggy-legged trousers were sloshy and stinky.

"You're the one all fired up about getting more gold," Remo complained. "Like Sinanju even needs more gold."

Chiun's face reddened in the firelight. "Sinanju always needs more gold! Have I taught you nothing, imbecile?"

"All right, don't have a sea cow. Come on, Cap'n. Could you at least see to the prisoners, Little Father?"

"Of course," Chiun said magnanimously.

"HE'S LYING, you know," Kidd said.

"Been known to happen," Remo conceded.

"He said the Masters of Sinanju never lie!"

"That was an untruth. How far is this place?"

"Just up ahead," Kidd said. "We'll see what you dig up. I know the treasure is not there. I know it."

"Okay. Fine."

"I know it. I mean it."

"Okay, okay, you know it! Is this the place?" They were in a clearing in the trees no more than eight feet in diameter. The soil was sandy. "It's one of the lowest points on the island," Kidd said. "The chests were eight feet down, about. It's been dug up over and over in the last three hundred years. At twelve feet you hit water in the sand. You can't get through it. It's been tried a dozen times. You just can't."

"Fine," Remo said. "The treasure is not-"

Remo paralyzed the malodorous pirate with a pinch and propped him up against a tree. Then he started digging with his hands.

The sand flew out of the ground as if some high-tech piece of machinery were pile-driving into it. Captain Kidd, mute, paralyzed and stinky, watched the hole appear as if by magic, frowning deeper by the second.

Then he noticed where the sand was going-flying into the air and sprinkling down on his head and shoulders, and piling up around his legs. His feet were already covered-he could see his shins disappearing if he really strained his eyeballs.

Soon he felt the cool pressure of the sand reach his crotch. By the time he was chest deep in the sandpile, Remo was out of sight, so deep was he in the hole he had created.

But it had only been maybe fifteen minutes-this was impossible! Kidd tried to tell himself this was all a bad dream.

Kidd was now buried to his chin.

The sand coming out of the ground was now soggy, and it landed on his head in globules. Seawater trickled down his face.

The ancient Korean appeared in the moonlight and bent to peer into the hole. "Are you not finished yet?"