Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

"The footprints of men go this way," he said, pointing to the west.

Remo joined him.

"I count three."

Chiun nodded. "Two are hours old, one more recent."

Remo checked the bodies. "The commander said something about a colonel. There are blood spots here and the impression of a body, but no body. I think the colonel was wounded but got up."

"Yes, these are the prints of a colonel's boots."

"Now, how can you tell that?"

"Because I am Reigning Master and I have fingernails of the correct length."

Remo grunted skeptically. He looked around. "I guess we have a hike ahead of us."

"You may continue to carry my trunk."

"Thanks," Remo said dryly.

And taking the trunk up on his shoulder, Remo faced the Master of Sinanju, saying, "If I see a locker anywhere, I'm stashing this for the duration."

"Do not dare."

"You're just busting my chops, hoping I'll cave in to your little blackmail scam."

"You will," said Chiun.

"I will not."

"The night is young, and the trunk will only get more heavy."

"Actually it's pretty light. What did you say was inside?"

"I did not say. But in exchange for a solemn vow to free your nails, I will allow you to peer inside."

"No, thanks."

"I will not make this generous offer again."

"Good. Because I'm not falling for it."

They continued on. His curiosity aroused, Remo laid an ear against a lapis lazuli phoenix. A faint sound came from the trunk. It was hard to place, but Remo had a growing suspicion that he was carrying approximately five million loose toothpicks.

Well down the trail, they spotted other spoor.

"Smells like something died," Remo said, protecting his nostrils by switching to mouth respiration.

"Or a man's bowels have rebelled against his stomach."

"Yeah, now that you bring it up, that's exactly what it smells like. Pheew. "

"No doubt the ill one was a corn addict."

"Corn doesn't cause diarrhea," Remo said.

"Is it not said when the bowels fill with water the surest cure is rice?"

"Yeah..."

"And is not corn the opposite of rice?"

"That, I don't buy."

"It does not matter that you buy this or do not, only that it is true. Corn befouls the bowels, which in turn softens the stools. Avoid corn, Remo, if you wish to boast of substantial stools."

"I don't care two shits about my stools."

"You must be aware of these things if you are to achieve my sublime age."

"I can't really imagine myself getting to be one hundred years old."

"Nor can I, who am only eighty."

"Too late, Chiun. I know better. You were born sometime in the last century. You admitted it once."

"That does not mean I am the age you think I am."

Remo stepped over a fallen tree that was perforated by termite burrows. "It does unless you've pulled a Rip Van Winkle when no one was looking."

"Koreans do not reckon time as do Westerners."

"Whatever you say," said Remo. "Is this trunk filled with toothpicks by any chance?"

"No."

Farther along the terrible smell came again.

"I wonder if that's our man?"

"If it is, you may dispatch him," sniffed Chiun. "I do not care to soil my perfect nails with the task."

"Another reason to keep the nail clippers close by. Hey! What's this?"

Chiun froze in place. "What is what?" he hissed.

"That," said Remo, pointing.

Chiun's wide eyes tracked toward the base of a tree.

His parchment wrinkles tightened. "I see no foe."

"I didn't say anything about a foe. Isn't that a book?"

"Yes. So? Books are common."

"Not in the jungle," said Remo, laying down the lacquered trunk. "Hold on."

At the base of the tree, Remo examined the book carefully without getting too close. In Vietnam commonplace objects were often dropped along jungle paths by the Vietcong to lure unwary GIs into stepping on buried mines.

This particular book made Remo think of Vietnam. But his sharp eyes detected no trip wires or tell tale depression in the ground to suggest a buried antipersonnel mine.

It looked safe, so he knelt and picked up the book. A paperback, it came open in his hands as he regained his feet.

A slow look of surprise came over his face.

"Check it out," said Remo. "Who would read these in the jungle?"

"What is this?" said Chiun, drifting up.

Not taking his gaze from the title page, Remo lifted the book so the Master of Sinanju could examine the cover. It showed a grim-faced man wearing tigerstripe camouflage paint.

Eyes frowning, Chiun read the title aloud:

"Deadly Death?"

"Guess they ran out of good titles a couple hundred books back," said Remo.

"I do not understand your infatuation."

"This is an Extinguisher book. We used to read these by the ton back in Nam."

"You read this junk?"

"It wasn't junk! At least, it didn't read like junk back then. I don't know about now. This first paragraph is kinda dull."

Flipping back, Remo found the copyright page.

"It's a new one. Boy, I didn't think they still published these."

"It says it is number #214. Is that the number that are printed?"

"No, Little Father, that's the number of adventures in the series."

"You are joking."

"I guess they're still pretty popular."

"Throw it away, it will give you bad ideas."

Remo dropped the book where he found it.

"Okay, but only because we have work do do. But they used to be pretty exciting. I remember one where Blaize Fury single-handedly-"

"Who is Blaize Fury?"

"The Extinguisher's real name. He was a fire fighter whose entire family was burned to death by Mafia arsonists and decided to hunt them down."

"It has taken him 214 adventures and he had not yet succeeded?"

"Actually he got the arsonists in the first book, but it wasn't enough. After that he decided to wipe out the entire Mafia. He would go from city to city shooting practically everyone whose name ended in a vowel."

"No wonder he still struggles. He employs a boom stick and wastes his wrath upon soldiers. Any fool understands if you cut off the head, a snake will quickly die."

"The Mafia had a lot of snakes heads in those days. Besides, it's only fiction."

"One man wrote all those books?"

"I don't know about now, but back then, yeah."

"What was his name?"

"Cooper, Carter, or something like that. He was good. But after five or six books, you kinda noticed he was repeating the same three plots over and over again."

"Just like Gordons," sniffed Chiun.

"Now that you mention it, yeah, just like Mr. Gordons. All he was programmed to do was survive, but he lacked one essential ingredient. Creativity. Even when he finally got his programming fixed, he was still as naive as a six-year-old. Last time out, we pulled the wool over his eyes pretty easily."

"What do you mean 'we,' round-eyes?"

"It was a team effort, okay? Stop busting my chops."

"I do not like to hear about Gordons."

"He's out of commission, so what's the problem?"

"He robbed me of my most precious possession."

"Oh, here we go again ...." Remo groaned.

"Yes, scoff. Minimize. You are a minimizer of tragedies."

"Right now," Remo said, hoisting the trunk up onto his right shoulder, "I'm just a beast of burden."

"And I am the last pure-blooded Master of Sinanju. It was my responsibility to sire the next in my line. But I am unable to fulfill this sacred duty because of the accursed man-machine Gordons. "

"Actually he was an android, not a machine."

"He was a cruel monster. Fashioned by a white lunatic to bring horror to the world just as he brought horror to my formerly serene life."

"He was created for the space program. To go where human astronauts couldn't. To survive at all costs so that he could send back telemetry of what he found. But I agree with you about the lunatic part. The idiot who built Gordons programmed him to assimilate anything living or not so he could take whatever form maximized his survival."