Warren Murphy: Bidding War

Then they tried to run him down with a long black official car.

Remo stopped perfectly still and let them.

At the last possible second, with the grille bearing down on him, Remo executed a standing backflip and landed in a tiger's crouch on the strong steel car roof.

The car circled and screeched and, when there was no sign of a flat dead American, it straightened out and raced after the line of official limousines bearing the Master of Sinanju.

Atop the car Remo smiled tightly. Maybe he'd get to go with Chiun after all.

Chapter Forty

Her name was unknown, but in Suwon Province she was known as the Wart Woman. When she answered the door to her crumbling hovel, her face was aboil with warts through which she smiled toothless and foolish.

"Enter," she cackled. She wore a faded cinnabar hanbok dress. A cataract clouded one eye. Her black hat rose to a scarlet peak.

Inside, the room was filled with hanging costumes, arcane musical instruments and the dang shrine where she entreated the spirits of the dead.

After they placed four hundred won into the mouth of a boar's head, she asked, "Which spirit general would you consult with? The Fire General? The Lightning Bolt General? General White Horse? Or—"

The president of South Korea hesitated. It was a difficult choice. The choice of spirit general would have a very great impact upon the value of the wisdom dispensed.

He consulted with his advisers in hushed tones.

"The Fire General," urged the unification minister.

"No, the White Horse General," the CIA director insisted.

Waving at them to be quiet, the president spoke to the Wart Woman, by reputation the most oracular Mudang in all of Korea.

"Can you summon MacArthur?" he asked.

"Hee-hee! MacArthur will speak to you through my mouth."

Flinging herself to the racked clothing, she donned a khaki military uniform and service cap. At her dang shrine, she performed certain rites, singing in a caterwauling voice.

The kut had begin.

Soon she was in a trance and flinging herself about the room. Abruptly she fell into a sitting position on the floor, looking at them with eyes that were no longer hers. Even her face lost its semisenile looseness.

"Gentleman," she said through her bobbing corncob pipe, "what seems to be your problem?" All three men would have sworn her new voice belonged to General Douglas MacArthur, savior of South Korea—if only Truman had shown wisdom.

"The new peril from the North," the president stammered. "Is it real?"

"The foe you fear is headed for Pyongyang right this minute."

The president swallowed hard. "What is your advice to us?"

"One word."

The three leaders leaned forward to await the wisdom from the rubbery lips of the Wart Woman, who spoke in the true voice of the great American general.

"Attack!" she said.

Chapter Forty-one

The Master of Sinanju was escorted to an underground complex in a fenced-off area immediately south of Beijing.

As he entered, accompanied by high-ranking generals and others, he surveyed the flat surrounding countryside and said, "I see no rocket."

"It is underground," he was told.

"American rockets stand upon the ground, no doubt so as to save fuel because that places them closer to the sky," another said.

"Russian and American armies are jealous of our rockets, for they are the greatest in the world," said a third. "They would bomb them if they could find them. So we are forced to place them safely underground."

"Ah," said the Master of Sinanju as they passed steel door upon steel door that had to be rolled back with dual keys turned by two hands standing on opposite sides of the corridor. This, he was informed, was a security measure so no unauthorized person could unlock the doors.

At the end of a concrete corridor lay a great door like the one King Solomon had barring his treasury, according to Master Boo.

"You may enter the rocket."

"I see no rocket."

"The inside of the rocket is behind this door. You have only to enter, the door will be closed and sealed and the ride into destiny will begin."

"Very well. Open the door to destiny."

It was done with three men turning three keys this time, and the thick steel door parted in the middle, the sides separating.

A dark space was revealed. Machine smells came from within, offending the nose of the Master of Sinanju. He hesitated.

"Enter please. We are ready to launch."

Chiun faced them, eyes and voice knife-thin. "Know, soldiers of the Han, that if you fail to bring me back correctly, a great and terrible punishment will be inflicted upon you by my son, who may be white but is true to Sinanju."

The faces of the Han were suddenly still. Their eyes glittered as their lids compressed. If they took offense, it didn't show.

With that, the Master of Sinanju entered the dank chamber, and the great doors resealed with a empty clang.

In the darkness the thin eyes of Chiun gathered the dying shards and fragments of light and assembled them so that he could see.

The chamber was a concrete cylinder and hung with great electrical cables. Water dripped, stagnant and old. Somewhere a rat skittered on the broken floor. The chemical smell was overpowering, so the Master of Sinanju began breathing shallowly.

Looking up, Chiun beheld a great dark maw suspended over his aged head, like a tremendous bell, much like the one employed by the kings of the Silla Kingdom to punish criminals by inserting their heads into the hollow and setting the metal to violent ringing by pounding mallets.

Except there was no room for mallets or men between the bell and the great concrete cistern in which it hung.

But somewhere above, something went click like an electrical relay closing. And great engines began to turn, so slowly that only the ears of a Master of Sinanju could detect their first faint revolutions.

The official Hong Qui—Red Flag—car slithered through the installation checkpoint without Remo being noticed.

As it approached, he had slid off the car roof and was clinging to the side where no one could see him, not the passengers, not the gate guard on the opposite side.

When the vehicle rolled inside, Remo looked around. He saw tall grass and a few funny-looking gingko trees.

As the car slowed in its approach to a bunkerlike building, he noticed the green steel missile silo roof door on its sliding track several hundred yards away, fringed by gingko trees to provide overhead camouflage.

"Uh-oh," he said to himself, "looks like an underground missile site. Better find Chiun fast."

The car doors opened and the passengers emptied out in a rush. One stumbled and was called by the other, "FangTung!"

And suddenly Remo remembered that pungent phrase had been used by the nameless drive-by killers back in Massachusetts.

Coming out of his crouch by the car, Remo slipped up behind the two officers as they approached a blank steel door in the concrete blockhouse.

One inserted a magnetic keycard, the door began rolling open and Remo reached out and took each man by the spine.

They had time to bleat out the first microsecond of what was meant to be a blood-curdling scream. But all electrical and brain activity ceased when their spines exited their backs, pulling out all life. Without lumbar support, they fell into each other and collapsed. Remo stepped over them.

Inside he wasted no time.

"Chiun, where are you?"

That brought three PLA guards in green running.

If their slack-jawed expressions meant anything, the sight of a Westerner stupefied them into inaction. So Remo stepped in and blended their Kalashnikovs into a kind of fuzzy metallic cocoon in which their arms were inextricably tangled.

He moved on, leaving them to their helpless weeping.