Warren Murphy: High Priestess

He had bitten down on the black pill just as the first jolt ripped through his shaking body.

When he'd woken up, Remo had a new face, no last name and two options, neither one good. No higherup had framed Patrolman Remo Williams. His own government had set him up. His name had been on file ever since a one-handed spook of a CIA agent had noticed his cool, methodical ability to kill Vietcong snipers with a bolt-action Garand rifle. The file had been pulled, and as a result Remo Williams became a living dead man. Officially in his grave, file closed, end of freaking story.

But the grave, Remo was told, could be opened at any time and he could be dumped into it, his body cooked by electrocution, if he chose not to cooperate.

Remo chose to cooperate. And so became the sole enforcement arm for CURE, a supersecret government organization created in the early 1960s by a United States President who would not live to see the experiment he had launched come to fruition. Because in those dark days, the American flirtation with democracy was close to the breaking point. Organized crime was reaching high into the government. Laws designed to protect the lawful instead shielded the lawless from simple justice. The young, idealistic President faced two choices-suspend the Constitution and admit that democracy was a dead end, or set in place a secret agency to bridge the gap.

Thus CURE. Not an acronym, but a code name. It represented a remedy for America's social ills. And when CURE, working quietly behind the scenes, reached the point where its anonymous brand of justice was not enough, the director of CURE reached out and chose honest, patriotic but lethal Remo Williams to be the assassin sanctioned to destroy a struggling country's enemies, foreign and domestic. The Destroyer.

It had been so long ago that Remo had all but forgotten the early days when he had been retrained in weapons handling, exotic poisons and other deadly arts that became instantly obsolete once he was introduced to the elderly Korean who was the Master of Sinanju, a discipline that people who thought kung fu was something special would call a martial art.

If Sinanju was a martial art, it was the original martial art. The ultimate system of attack and defense. It was practiced by the greatest house of assassins in human history, taught to only one man in a generation and never taught to anyone who was not born in the obscure Korean fishing village of Sinanju-until the American government asked the last living Master of Sinanju to train a white man in the forbidden discipline. Remo Williams.

Now Remo would no sooner carry a gun than wear a gorilla for a hat. The sight of a firearm no longer triggered his survival instincts. And he walked the earth, one hundred fifty-five pounds of lean muscle and perfectly coordinated bone, the most remorseless and implacable killer since Tyrannosaurus rex.

It felt good. It always felt good. His blood surged through his circulatory system pure and untainted by chemicals or drugs, and his lungs processed oxygen with such efficiency that every cell in his body worked like a miniature furnace. Whatever the human body was capable of at its maximum potential, Remo could do on his off days. And more.

Across the night came a strange haunting sound. Aummm. . . .

It came again. "Aummm. . . . "

Then Remo saw the unfamiliar silhouette in the north window of the square tower.

He ran, shifting from an easy, efficient walk to a graceful run that looked slow but covered space like a ray of light.

He hit the front door and went up the stairs. Every sense was operating. He smelled death. And unfamiliar living bodies. Not Americans. No American had such a buttery smoky odor.

At the top of the stairs, his reflexes carried him over the scattered luggage without thinking, and he hit the door to the tower room.

In the center of the square room, squatting in a lotus position, sat an Asian in a saffron robe. His head was shaved close to his skull, and his face was as smooth as soaked tissue paper.

His mouth was parted and out came a mournful sound.

"Aummm . . ."

Then, noticing he was not alone, he stuck his tongue out in Remo's direction as far as it would go.

"Who the hell are you?" Remo demanded.

Behind him, down the stairs, a door banged open and a pungent human scent came to Remo's sensitive nostrils. He was in the act of turning when a booming voice cried, "Ho, White Tiger! I bring you death. Catch it if you can!"

And the unmistakable sound of a knife whizzing toward his exposed back came to Remo's ears.

Chapter 3

The skills that Remo Williams had learned under the tutelage of Chiun, the last Master of Sinanju, were so ingrained that his reactions to danger were automatic.

All thrown blades make a specific sound. Remo had learned to differentiate among these sounds in the long-ago days of his early Sinanju training when the Master of Sinanju would pluck assorted dull knives, daggers and even scissors from his wide sleeves and send them arrowing toward Remo's back.

Remo acquired numerous bruises and minor nicks, but had learned to move first and think later whenever his ears told his brain that a deadly instrument was zipping toward him. As his training progressed, these weapons were sharpened finer and finer with a whetstone. Chiun made Remo sharpen them himself.

"You're trying to kill me, aren't you?" Remo had said one day.

"Yes," the Master of Sinanju had replied blandly.

"You admit it, huh?"

The Master of Sinanju had shrugged carelessly. "I admit it. For your enemies will attempt to kill you in earnest. If I am to instill in you the reflexes that will save your life, I must do my best to motivate them in like earnestness. That is why you must sharpen these tools yourself, so that your dull white senses fully comprehend the danger you face."

And Remo had. The training progressed from bruises to punctures and the occasional scar. Then it was second nature to twist out of the way. When no blade could catch him unawares, Remo was taken to the next level. Turning the weapon against his attacker.

Now, as the dagger neared his back, Remo slid off to one side, pivoting. His hands, impelled by chemical reactions in his brain he no longer thought about, swept around and clasped the dagger-he knew it was a dagger before he saw it because they sounded heavier in flight than a stiletto or a bowie knife-capturing it. Its momentum, redirected, became a part of Remo's pivoting until he let go.

Still in motion, the dagger spun around and returned to the one who had thrown it, point first. It was called "Returning the Angry Coin."

The blade buried itself in a wall with a heavy thunk.

And under its quivering bone hilt, a crouching man boomed out joyful laughter.

"Very good, White Tiger! Very good indeed!"

The attacker straightened, his face a beaming brazen gong in which dark almond eyes twinkled with good humor.

"Kula! What are you doing here!"

Kula the Mongol surged up the stairs and threw out his great arms in welcome.

Fading off to one side, Remo ducked the bear hug.

"Where's Chiun?" he demanded, keeping a safe distance. Mongols ate and drank things that caused their pores to leak unpleasant odors Remo would rather not inhale.

"Preparing our tea, as a good host should." The Mongol squinted. "Are you not pleased to see me?"

Remo wasn't sure if he was or he wasn't. He didn't like company. He never had company, as a matter of fact. And every time Chiun had company, trouble usually followed.

"Chiun never mentioned that you were coming," Remo pointed out.

"How could he? He did not know."

"Then how'd you find us?"

"I called the magic number and the secret address was revealed to me by the Master of Sinanju's servant, Pullyang."