Warren Murphy: Chinese Puzzle

It did not reach the bottom of the box because under his hand was the hate-filled face. It no longer hated because jammed into the box at that speed, it was no longer a face. It was a pulp. Beans had been driven into the eyes.

From above, it looked as if the black belt who had weakened to hate under the pressure of fear was drinking from the box deeply, the beans covering his head. Blood seeped up through the beans, swelling them.

Remo did a waltz skip to a pile of tiles with the other two black belts swinging about his head and toward his back. He scooped up two curved gray tiles from the pile and began to whistle, and as he dodged blows and kicks, he began clacking the curved bricks in rhythm to the melody.

He spun around one blow and brought the two bricks, one in each hand, together, with an Afro between them. Directly in the middle of the Afro was a head. The two bricks made valiant effort to meet. But they cracked. So did the head in the Afro between them.

The Afro with the open-mouthed head went to the mat. The remnants of the tiles went into the air. The last black standing threw an elbow that missed and then said, eloquently:

"Sheeit."

He stood there, his arms hanging, his forehead perspiring. "Ah don't know what you got, man, but Ah can't take it."

"Yeah," said Remo. "Sorry."

"Up yours, honkey," said the man, breathing heavily.

"That's the business, sweetheart," said Remo and as the man made one last desperate lunge, Remo shattered his throat with a back slash.

He untied the black belts as the corpse staggered by and walked over to the man with the broken knee who was trying to crawl to the door. He dangled the belt in front of his face. " "Want to win another one fast?"

"No man, I don't want nuthin'."

"Don't you want to wipe out whitey?"

"No, man," cried the crawling black belt.

"Ah, c'mon. Don't tell me you're one of those who save his militancy for deserted subways and classrooms?"

"Man, Ah don't want no trouble. Ah ain't done nuth-in'. You brutalizing."

"You mean when you mug someone, that's revolution. But when you get mugged, that's brutality."

"No, man." The black covered his head awaiting some sort of blow. Remo shrugged.

"Give him the black belt of the dojo of Kyoto," sang out Chiun. Remo saw anger flood the face of Kyoto, but it was quickly controlled.

"Unless, of course," Chiun said sweetly to Kyoto, "you of years of experience would care to teach the martial arts to my humble student of just a few moments?"

"That is not a humble student," said Kyoto. "And you did not teach him art, but the methods of Sinanju."

"All the house of Sinanju had to work with was a white man. But in our small way, we attempt to do the best we can with whatever is given us." The black belt with the broken knee was now scurrying into a dressing room out a side door, which slammed shut behind him. Kyoto's eyes followed the sound and Chiun said, "That man has the instincts of a champion. I will tell your honourable father how successful you are in teaching track and field. He will be happy that you have deserted dangerous sports."

Remo folded the black belt in his hands carefully, walked over and flipped it to Kyoto. "Maybe you can sell it to somebody else."

The dojo looked as if it had just surfaced from a whirlpool that had struck in the middle of a class. Chiun looked happy, but he said: "Pitiful. Your left hand still fails to extend properly."

Mei Soong was ashen-faced.

"I thought ... I thought . . . Americans were soft."

"They are," snickered Chiun.

"Thanks for bringing me here," Remo said. "Any other places you wish to visit?"

Mei Soong paused. "Yes," she finally said. "I'm hungry."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

In the long march, there had been nothing like it. In the days of hiding in the caves of Yenan there had been nothing like it. And there was no answer in the thoughts of Mao tse Tung. Even in the spirit of Mao, there was no answer.

General Liu forced himself to accept with politeness the news from the messenger. In the decadent monarchist regimes of the past, the evil of the news would have fallen on the head of its bearer. But this was a new age, and General Liu simply said: "You may go and thank you, comrade."

There had been nothing like it before. He watched the messenger salute and depart, shutting the door behind him, leaving General Liu in the windowless room which smelled of oil on metal and had but one chair and a bed, and very poor ventilation.

Other generals might live in splendour, but a people's general could never aggrandize himself. Other generals might live in palace houses like warlords, but not him. Not a real people's general who had buried his brothers in mountains and left a sister in a winter's snow, who had at 13 been requisitioned for service in the Mandarin's fields, just as his sister had been requisitioned for service in the Mandarin's bed.

General Liu was a great general of the people, not in his pride but in his experience. He could smell the quality of a division 10 miles away. He had seen armies rape and pillage, and he had seen armies build towns and school-houses. He had seen a lone man annihilate a platoon. But he had never seen what he was seeing now. And in comfort-loving America, of all places.

He looked down again at the note in his hands, and as he had looked at other notes during the three days he had been in hiding.

First, there were the hired gangsters in Puerto Rico. Not revolutionaries, but competent. And they had failed.

Then there was Ricardo de Estrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner, of personal experience a man who had never failed. And he had failed.

And there was the Wah Ching street gang. And it had failed.

And when guns and gangs had failed, there were the great hands of the karate black belt.

He looked down at the note in his hands. And now that too had failed. They had all failed in both their missions: to eliminate those who were trying to find the general and to bring to him his bride of only one year.

And if General Liu and his men continued to fail, his people would cast themselves at the feet of the peacemakers in Peking, ready to forget the years of hardship and to end the revolution before it was complete.

Did they not know that Mao was just a man? A great man, but just a man and men grow old and weary and wish to die in peace?

Did they not see that this step backwards, making peace with imperialism, was a retreat, just when the battle was being won? With victory in their mouths, would they now succumb to the son of a mandarin, the premier, and sit at the same table with the dying beast of capitalism?

Not if General Liu could stop it. General Liu would not have peace. The premier had misjudged his cunning, misjudged even his motives.

He had been careful not to let himself be seen in China as a leader of the war faction. He was just a people's general, until chosen by the premier to arrange safe journey for his trip to see the swine American President. He had quietly arranged for the deaths on the transport plane, and when that did not halt plans fot the premier's visit, he volunteered to go to America himself. And then after changing to western garb, he had shot his own guards and slipped alone, unnoticed onto the train which had brought him here.

It should have been easy to stay hidden during the seven days of grace the premier had given the Americans. But this impossible American could not be denied, and even now was probably closing in on General Liu. When his followers heard of the escape from the karate dojo, they would lose heart. They must be firmed up.

General Liu sat down on his hard cot. He would go through his plans three times, thinking over the details from three angles. Then he would speak to his people.