Warren Murphy: Arabian Nightmare

"I am an old man, and very ill. The task before me is to become well. There is no other objective possible. Or desirable."

"It was not Remo's fault that he did not understand your . . . appearances."

"You understood," Chiun said disapprovingly.

"I was not as emotionally involved as Remo," Harold Smith explained. "He interpreted your repeated gesture of pointing to the ground as indicating his feet. He thought you were trying to tell him that he walked in your sandals now."

"My spirit appeared to him four times," Chiun intoned. "He did not understand because he did not want to understand. He covets my title. I have given up my retirement years to train a pale piece of pig's ear, and when I needed him most, he pretended to be a tree ape and scratched his head in puzzlement." He turned his wizened face to the wall.

Smith decided to change his approach.

"I have just been on the telephone with the President of the United States."

"Hail to the chief," Chiun muttered.

"He was wondering what insights you might have," Smith went on. "Your ancestors worked for the Iraitis when they were the Mesopotamians."

"Bong worked for them. Bong the Worthless. He had alienated the Persians and the Egyptians, and was forced to make do with inferior clients."

"Ahem. They are entrenching themselves in occupied Kuran."

"Worms also dig holes."

"They refuse to knuckle under in the face of overwhelming economic ruin."

"They have always been poor. How much poorer can they become? It is all the same to those barbarians."

Smith listened to the bitterness of the old Korean's voice. He understood it. The Masters of Sinanju had always shouldered a cruel burden, hiring themselves out as assassins and protectors to the thrones of antiquity, because the village of Sinanju, situated on the bleak rocky shores of modern North Korea, could not support itself through fishing or industry. In the bad years, they drowned the children. It was called "sending the babies home to the sea."

Over the centuries, the House of Sinanju had risen in power and influence. The Masters of Sinanju learned every killing art there was, perfected many new ones, and then in the days of the Great Wang transcended the so-called martial arts when Wang discovered the sun source-the inner power that enabled the Masters of Sinanju to overcome human limitations and frailties to fully realize the potential of their minds and bodies.

More feared than the ninjas, more hated that the Borgias, more powerful than an army of Visigoths on the march, the Masters of Sinanju rose up from the mud flats of an inhospitable village to stand supreme in the martial arts.

A long line, proud, haughty, unbroken. Until the time of Chiun, whose original Korean pupil went renegade, leaving him with no replacement until America had asked him to do an impossible, unforgivable thing-train a white man in the forbidden art of Sinanju.

The last of his line, Chiun had done this thing. And in the long years that followed, he had discovered that Remo Williams possessed the promise of greatness. Chiun dared to dream that Remo was the fulfillment of a half-forgotten legend of Sinanju that foretold the coming of a dead night tiger who would be the avatar of Shiva the Destroyer, and would ultimately become the greatest Master of them all.

Remo was. And had. But Remo had become increasingly subject to personality transformations, in which the spirit of Shiva had peered through Remo's mortal eyes.

Now, at the worst possible time, Remo had become Shiva. Chiun had seen this on television. Kimberly Baynes had broken his neck, liberating the spirit of Shiva. Remo was no more.

It meant that the Sinanju line ended with Chiun. In fulfilling the prophecy, Chiun had abolished the very thing he had sacrificed so much to perpetuate.

Worse, Chiun had come to love Remo like a son. Now he felt abandoned and betrayed. Life held no more sweetness for him.

Harold Smith adjusted his striped Dartmouth tie. He smoothed it down absently. Neither gesture was needed.

"I understand how you feel," he said carefully.

Chiun looked up with interest. "You have a son?"

"A daughter."

His eyes became slits of cold light. "Then you do not understand."

"The President is uncertain whether or not he should order a strike against Abominadad."

"Strike them," Chiun said flatly. "The world will be better off."

"It would be a devastating strike. Remo would undoubtedly perish."

Chiun waved a dismissive hand. "Remo is no more. Shiva walks in his shoes. Your President could no more obliterate Shiva than a Master of Sinanju could pull down the moon with a net of spiderwebs. Inform him he should not wait."

Smith's stooped shoulders visibly sagged. "Then I guess you will be returning to Sinanju."

"There is time. My contract has not yet expired. I will fulfill that-within the limitations that my long ordeal has inflicted on me."

"I am sorry to inform you, Master Chiun," Harold Smith said, thinking quickly, "but your contract expired several weeks ago."

Chiun's eyes snapped open in fright. A faint electrical sensation came into the room. It was coming from Chiun.

"Truly?" he squeaked, his voice vibrating like a plucked harp string.

"Truly."

"This is terrible."

"I might consider an extension."

"I do not mean that," Chiun flared. "I mean that I have missed my kohi. "

Smith blinked. "Excuse me?"

"It is a Korean word," Chiun explained. "It means 'old and rare.' When a Master of Sinanju reaches his one hundredth birthday, he is said to have achieved his kohi. It is a time of great celebration. And I am the first Master of Sinanju to miss his kohi for reasons other than death." He heaved a tiny sigh. "Truly, I am cursed by the gods."

"I am sorry to hear that," Smith said tonelessly.

"Leave me now. I am disconsolate."

"Of course."

Smith moved toward the door. The Master of Sinanju's eyes slowly closed. The faint electricity in the air began subsiding.

At the door, Smith paused.

"By the way," he said, "have you insurance?"

Chiun's voice was distant. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, the sanitarium charges over three hundred dollars a day," Smith explained. "The private nurses are extra, of course. And the television is twenty-five dollars a day. To whom shall I send the bill?"

Chiun sat up like a switchblade folding.

"Bill!" he squeaked. "I have served your organization for two miserable decades! And you demand repayment?"

"I must. This is Folcroft, not the organization. Technically, they are separate operating budgets. I cannot forgive the debt of one on behalf of the other."

Chiun's eyes went narrow and steely.

"You have saved me, Harold Smith, from a cold eternity of emptiness," he began.

"I appreciate your gratitude," Smith said levelly.

"I am not grateful," Chiun said coldly, "for I have returned to bitterness and ingratitude on all sides. Better that you had left me to bob like a dried apricot in the eternal Void than return me to such gracelessness."

"Perhaps we might work something out," Smith suggested.

Chiun's eyes squeezed into bitter blades.

"How?"

"I could forgive the debt, in return for your consultation on the Iraiti situation."

Chiun's eyes squeezed tighter. But for a lean, menacing glitter, they might have been closed.

"Is that not mixing your businesses?" he demanded.

"CURE can legally pay you a consulting fee, out of which you may repay Folcroft for your medical expenses."

"No," Chiun said in a firm voice.

"No?

"I must have double," said Chiun, his voice rising anew. "Double because I have endured the tortures of nurses who should be working in mines deep underground rather than attending one such as I."

"I would agree to that," Smith said coolly.