Warren Murphy - Last Rites

Remo looked up. It was a movie advertisement. The film was The Return of Muck Man.

Remo started to say something harsh, when his eyes locked with those of the leafy green face on the poster. He froze.

"I know those eyes," he said half to himself.

"They exist in the mirror of your memory, which you refuse to consult."

Striding forward, Remo walked up to the billboard and began reading the credits.

He went as pale as a ghost, and his rotating wrists suddenly grew still. Hands fisting up, he spun on the Master of Sinanju. "You knew! You knew all along. All these years you've known, haven't you?"

Chiun said nothing.

"Haven't you?" Remo raged.

"And if you had looked correctly into the mirror of memory, you would have known, as well," Chiun said evenly.

"Bull!"

The face of the Master of Sinanju flinched, and Remo brushed past him, cold and angry.

Silently Chiun padded after his pupil, who neither heard nor sensed his presence.

There would be no stopping him now. All was in the hands of the unforgiving gods.

Chapter 23

The flight from Phoenix to Yuma, Arizona, was brief. Less than an hour. Nothing but trackless desert lay below.

They were carried through the early evening air by a nineteen-passenger Beech 1900. There was no stewardess. Remo sat in the front and Chiun several rows behind. A thick silence hung between them. Remo passed the time looking at the drawing of his mother's face thoughtfully.

When Yuma with its lettuce groves appeared, Remo's mind went back to an assignment several years before. Posing as a stuntman, he had infiltrated the making of a war movie about an invasion of the US. financed by a Japanese industrialist. There were labor problems, and because the famous American film actor Bartholomew Bronzini was starring, Harold Smith had sent Remo to look into matters. It was all a front. The weapons were real, and the extras were a Japanese paramilitary unit. They had seized the entire town of Yuma, which lay like an island oasis in the Sonoran Desert.

Wholesale executions had been undertaken and televised to the rest of the country. The objective was simple. To hold Yuma until the helpless US. military was goaded into nuking one of its own cities. The man responsible had sought revenge for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It had almost worked. Remo had been nearly killed when he participated in a stunt involving volunteers from the Yuma Marine Corps air base. It had been a massive parachute drop. The Japanese had sabotaged the chutes. The Marines had all died, leaving Yuma undefended. Remo woke up in a hospital after it was all over, only to find that Chiun had saved the day without him. He couldn't remember anything that had happened to him after he'd bailed out over the desert.

A man Remo had worked with had died during the occupation, Chiun had said. Only now did Remo know different. Only now. Five years later.

At the tiny Yuma International Airport, Remo rented a four-wheel-drive Mazda Navajo and turned to the Master of Sinanju. "You don't have to come any farther."

"I must come. For I know the way, you do not." Remo said nothing. They drove out of the city and into the Sonoran Desert with its undulating dunes and saguaro cactus, where countless Hollywood movies, from Westerns to science-fiction extravaganzas, had been filmed.

Remo drove west. There was only one road west. The Japanese film had been shot west of the city, among the dunes. It was blisteringly hot. A red-tailed hawk hung in the sky, searching.

As they approached an unmarked access road, Chiun suddenly said, "Take this road."

Remo turned onto the road, and after fifteen more minutes of driving they reached a low corral-style fence. Braking, Remo got out.

The gate was closed. There was a red Quarantine sign hung on the fence. Remo noticed that the sign covered another.

Lifting the Quarantine sign, Remo saw the word Reservation burned into the wood. The name above was unreadable except that it began with an S.

Brushing sand dust off the burned letters, Remo was able to make out one word: Sun.

"'My people are the people of the Sun,'" Remo muttered. Turning to the Master of Sinanju, he asked, "Know anything about this?"

"I have been here," Chiun said thinly. "When you were thought dead."

Without a word, Remo threw open the gate and they drove in.

They passed three domed Indian huts before they were challenged. An Indian toting a pump shotgun stepped into their headlight beam and fired into the air. Remo braked and climbed out.

"Can't you read that damn sign, paleface?"

"I'm looking for Sunny Joe Roam."

The shotgun dropped level with Remo's chest, "You ain't answered my question, white eyes."

And Remo moved on the man. The pump gun came out of his clutch and disintegrated in Remo's hands. The Indian stood looking at the shards of his steel-and-walnut weapon with a slack-jawed expression. "Where's Sunny Joe Roam?" Remo said tightly. Woodenly the Indian pointed to the west.

"Yonder. Red Ghost Butte. He went up there two days back. He ain't been back since." The Indian suddenly fell into a fit of coughing. "We think he's dead."

"Dead?"

"The death hogap dust musta got him. He went up there to talk to the spirit of Ko Jong Oh."

"You don't mean Kojong?"

"Forget it. Indian talk." The Indian fell to coughing again. "Damn this plague. Steals all the breath from a man."

"Plague?" Chiun said from the shadows.

The Indian coughed again. "Yeah. They call it the Sun On Jo Disease."

"Sun On Jo?" said Remo. "Not Sinanju?"

"Yeah. I ain't never heard of any Sinanju tribe." Then the Indian got a clear look at the Master of Sinanju. "Hey, don't I know you, old fella?"

"I was here when the Japanese sought to rain death on this land," Chiun said gravely.

"Yeah. You came with Sunny Joe. You're a good guy. But I think you're too late. We're all dying of this damn death dust."

"What's the best way to get to Red Ghost Butte?" Remo asked quickly.

"That jeep of yours will take you as far as Crying River."

"Crying River. Not Laughing Brook?"

"How do you know about Laughing Brook?" the brave asked.

"Never mind," said Remo, jumping for the open car door. "Thanks."

Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju. "You stay here."

Chiun's wispy chin lifted in defiance. "I am coming with you."

"That's your decision."

"Yes, it is."

They got into the Navajo and left the Indian choking on the dust kicked up by their rear wheels.

The road gave out eventually. The Navajo climbed the sand, found traction for a while, then got bogged down. They abandoned it.

The sand crunched softly under their feet. It was the only sound in the night. Red Ghost Butte reared up before them like a grounded ship.

They came to a long depressed wash of sand that had formed a crust and passed over it without breaking the crust. Hoof prints of a horse showed as broken patches in the crust, so they were not surprised to find a horse loitering at the foot of Red Ghost Butte.

The Master of Sinanju went to the horse and, prying open his mouth, examined the inside.

"He has known neither water nor food for two days."

"Must be Sunny Joe's horse," said Remo, looking up. Moonlight washed the eastern face of Red Ghost Butte. Plainly visible on one side was a hole.

"Looks like a cave up there," Remo said.

The Master of Sinanju said nothing. His eyes sought the cave mouth and held it.

"Does it remind you of the cave of your vision?" he asked.

"Can't tell from down here." And Remo started up. Picking his way through brambles and brush, he ascended until he stood at the entrance to the cave. He seemed to take his time, but in reality he reached the ledge before the mouth cave very quickly.