Warren Murphy: Skull Duggery

"That's our cue, Little Father," Remo shouted. They jumped from the car as Mongol horsemen formed a protective circle around them.

Kula led them. He reined in before Remo and Chiun. Jumping down, he ignored the Master of Sinanju and clapped his hands on Remo's shoulders in the traditional Mongol greeting.

"Ho, white tiger!" he cried. "I see we are in time to succor you."

Chiun stepped between them. "Remo, do you know this lunatic?"

Kula looked down at Chiun. "White tiger, is this old one with you?"

"White tiger?" Chiun said. His eyes narrowed.

"It's just a nickname they hung on me, kinda like the Lone Ranger," Remo offered. "How'd you know where I was, Kula?" he asked the Mongol.

"I heard that the Blue Bees had taken you. We tortured one of them until he told us where you would be found. That would-be khan, Boldbator, refused to join us, but Kula's men were not afraid."

"He was not afraid!" Chiun insisted harshly. "He was under obligation not to follow me. He is a Mongol with honor-unlike you."

"I am not under your obligation, or Boldbator's," Kula spat. "I serve the white tiger, the greatest warrior in all of Mongolia."

Remo turned to Chiun. He smiled broadly.

"I guess you had to hear it sometime," he said seriously. "It's true. I am the greatest warrior in all of Mongolia."

"You?" Chiun exploded. "You are no white tiger, but a pale piece of pig's ear!"

At that, Kula drew his knife. "Who are you to insult the white tiger?" he growled.

"I am the Master of Sinanju," Chiun said proudly, drawing himself up to his full five-foot height.

"That is what Boldbator swore," Kula returned. "I did not believe him, either."

Chiun's tiny mouth formed an outraged O. "What manner of Mongol are you that you do not know of the Master of Sinanju when you stand in his awesome presence?" Chiun demanded.

Kula gestured to his horse Mongols, as they drove the last of the surviving PLA out of their tanks and back into the hills with exultant whoops of joy.

"The kind who would lead his men into the teeth of the Chinese Army and hurl them broken into the wind," he said with pride.

"I think that translates as my Mongol can beat your Mongol," Remo whispered.

"Remo!" Chiun snapped. "Tell this man who I am!"

"Happy to." Remo turned to Kula. "Kula, this is Chiun. Chiun-meet Kula."

Kula regarded the Master of Sinanju stonily. Chiun turned to Remo, "No, tell him I am the Master of Sinanju."

"It's true," Remo said. "He is."

Kula's gong of a face looked Chiun up and down.

"There," Chiun said haughtily. "Now you may kneel. I will not require the full bow because you have assisted us."

"He is very small for a Master of Sinanju," Kula told Remo. "In the time of Lord Genghis, Masters of Sinanju were great robust men who rode magnificent ponies."

"I am an expert rider!" Chiun shouted.

"Then why did you ride this machine?" Kula asked, slapping the black limousine.

"Remo, tell this barbarian to kneel!"

Remo threw up his hands in a what-do-you-expect-me-to-do? gesture. "Hey, he's a Mongol. He's gonna do what he wants."

Chiun turned on Kula, pointing a furious shaking finger.

"You, horse Mongol!" he shouted. "Summon your men. In this very cave lies the treasure of Temujin. I will pay ten percent of all we recover to the men who help me carry it back to the village of Sinanju."

Kula looked to the cave mouth, where the dust still rolled out, carrying with it the tang of blood and other bodily secretions.

"What is to stop me from going in there and wresting the treasure for myself, old dragon?"

The Master of Sinanju's wrinkled face smoothed out in sudden shock. He leapt to the cave mouth, spreading defending arms.

"No man will cross this threshold but at my leave!" he warned. "Else he dies!"

Remo caught Kula's eye. "Believe him," he said.

"Ten percent for the use of your horses," Chiun called.

"Try for twenty," Remo suggested, sotto voce.

Kula lifted his voice. "Twenty and no less."

"Twelve!" Chiun shouted back.

They settled on fifteen percent, but only because the rest of the Mongols rode up, having driven off the last PLA stragglers.

They went inside carefully, batting the dust away from their faces as they felt their way along the high inner walls. They were covered with ancient dingy murals, depicting Buddahs, Chinese demons, and dragons. Remo counted five of the latter, which explained to his satisfaction why it was called Five-Dragon Cave.

"This is the fork," Chiun said at a split in the tunnel.

The dust was coming from the right-hand tunnel. The entrance was jammed with broken rock, dirt, and other debris. Dusty, blood-caked limbs projected from the choke of rock. Some were human, and some equine.

"How are we going to clear all that away?" Remo asked, trying not to think of Fang Yu buried under all that crushing rock.

"We will not," Chiun said, striding on to the left-hand tunnel.

Remo caught up. "I thought the skull said not to take the left fork."

"No. It instructed the reverse. Before I presented the skull to Wu Ming Shi, with my nails I incised the word not in a certain place. Blinded by greed, he neglected to examine the riddle closely for signs of doctoring. And so he perished."

They came to a high-ceilinged vault of rock. Mongol yak-butter candles lit the area with shuddery yellow light.

"Dig," commanded the Master of Sinanju, pointing to the wide flat ground before them.

Not a Mongol moved.

"Go ahead," Remo said quietly.

The Mongols threw themselves into their work with enthusiasm.

"You gotta know how to handle these guys," Remo said with a straight face.

Chiun fumed wordlessly.

As they dug, Remo spoke up. "One thing I still don't understand."

"There are many things you do not understand," Chiun said testily.

"Wu Ming Shi. When he walked, he left the screwiest tracks behind him."

"Ah," Chiun said, gesturing Remo back to the tunnel fork.

There he pushed aside loose rock with a sandaled toe and uncovered a foot encased in a soft black slipper, the toe pointing up.

"That is Wu Ming Shi's foot," Chiun pronounced. "Examine it and see how foolish you feel after you behold the sublime truth."

Remo knelt down and removed the sandal. The exposed foot was wrinkled and leathery brown, the nails curved like blunt talons. The ankle skin was withered like a huge twist of beef jerky.

"He could have used a good foot manicure," Remo remarked, "but that's about it."

"Extract the cadaver," Chiun suggested.

Remo shrugged. He pulled away more rock and debris, exposing a second foot. Taking the corpse by both ankles, Remo pulled. He had to twist and turn, because the body was really stuck. He got most of Wu Ming Shi pulled loose from the rock. The body was missing an arm and the head.

But that wasn't what made Remo abruptly drop the body as if it were contaminated.

"What the hell?" he said in surprise.

For Wu Ming Shi's remains had landed chest-down, even though the toes pointed upward.

"This is crazy!" Remo blurted out. "His feet are on backward!"

"Truly," Chiun beamed. "It is the insult I inflicted upon the wicked mandarin Wu Ming Shi, to these many years ago."

"You turned his feet around?" Remo said incredulously.

"It is a simple trick. Perhaps one day I will show it to you."

Chiun padded off, the high carriage of his head telling Remo his pride had been restored.

A call came out of the left-side tunnel. Chiun picked up his skirts in his haste. Remo flashed after him.

They plunged into the candlelit vault.

"Behold!" Kula said, lifting a dirt-clotted skull from the wide hole his Mongols had excavated.

Chiun snatched it from him, wailing, "Another stupid skull! What manner of Mongol trickery is this!" He spanked the dirt from the bony forehead, revealing Mongolian script. Chiun read it with narrow suspicious eyes.