Warren Murphy: Last Rites

"You are who you are. Just because you do not understand who you are does not mean you are not what you are."

"I can understand the cave. It's my brain working through the vision. But who was the eyeless guy and why was he wearing mist instead of clothing?"

"Perhaps he was a poor vagabond in search of a home."

"I wish I understood dreams."

"I wish I understood whites," said Chiun, dismissing the subject with a careless wave of his clicking fingernails.

But when Remo glanced over at him a few minutes later, the Master of Sinanju's wrinkled visage was tense with a dark foreboding.

Chapter 5

When Remo deplaned, the TWA stewardesses were all lined up at the exit door, tears in their eyes.

They waved him goodbye, patting him on the back, wishing him a happy stay in Madrid, and felt his strong lean biceps wistfully.

One gave him an affectionate pat on the backside, and when he and Chiun reached the terminal, Remo sensed he was being followed.

"Little Father, are those stewardesses following us?"

"No," said Chiun.

"Good."

"They are following you."

"Rats."

Outside the terminal a fight started over who would share a cab with Remo.

"No one's sharing a cab with me," said Remo, pulling spitting and clawing stewardesses off one another and making two piles.

Instantly the stewardesses pulled nail files and pen knives and held them to their pulsing throats.

"I'd rather die than not share a cab with you," one sobbed.

"Me, too."

Remo threw up his hands. "Okay. Okay. I surrender. Everybody into the cab."

There was a scramble to enter the cab. Remo obligingly held the doors open for the eager stewardesses. When the back seat filled up, he held open the front passenger's door. The driver was pushed out the other side by the crush of perfumed, uniformed bodies.

A stewardess reached out and clapped his cap over her head, rolling up the driver's-side window to prevent him from recovering it.

"Everybody comfy?" asked Remo. "Yes! Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes."

"Good," said Remo, going from door to door and welding them shut with the high-speed friction of his rubbing palms.

He left the trapped stewardesses fighting the windows open so they could squeeze out.

"What the hell's going on?" Remo complained to the Master of Sinanju as they walked away. "I always have problems with loose stewardesses, but never this bad."

"You are obviously baiting them with your manly allures."

"That's another thing. What about my rights as a man? That first stewardess all but tried to rape me, but I had to satisfy her. If it was the other way around, I'd have been the one up on charges."

"Aggressor."

"Get off it."

When the next cab in line pulled up, Chiun entered and told the driver in perfect Spanish, "Pompelo."

"Que?" said the driver.

"Pompelo," Chiun repeated. And when the driver continued looking blank, he added, "San Fermin."

"Ah," said the driver. He hit the gas just as Remo's foot left the pavement. Remo got the door shut in time to see the airport Exit sign flash by.

"Where are we going?" he asked Chiun.

"To a pleasant little town below the Pyrenees."

"What's it called?"

"It was founded by one of Pompey's sons. The cross-eyed one, if I recall the scrolls of my ancestors correctly."

"Do you recall a name?"

"Pompelo."

"Never heard of it. I've heard of Pamplona, but not Pompelo."

Chiun made a face. "These modern Iberians cannot even pronounce the names of their better towns. Pah." The cab took them out of Madrid at high speed and through lush, climbing Spanish countryside. The early-July air was brisk and invigorating. There were many white churches along the way.

On the way, Remo saw a road sign that read Pamplona-300 km.

"That's two hundred miles."

"If we are going to Pamplona. We are not. We are going to Pompelo," said Chiun.

They drove for nearly four hours through hills and valleys with the Pyrenees always looming off to the east. When the mountains petered out into a flat plain, they reached their destination.

It was a plain-looking city dominated by industrial smokestacks and the brick of factory buildings. Remo said, "The sign says Pamplona."

"It is really Pompelo."

As they entered town, it became clear a festival of some sort was in progress. The streets were clogged by cars, tourists from all nations staggered about in various stages of inebriation. Soon traveling by car became more trouble than it was worth.

In perfect Spanish, Chiun paid off the driver and they got out in a broad plaza that reeked of history. "What's going on?" asked Remo as two men stumbled by wearing red sashes and long ropes of garlic hung around their necks.

"Some pagan festival," sniffed Chiun as a man in an ordinary suit coat and an exaggerated papier-mache head the size of a suitcase staggered by.

"I'm not in the mood for festivities."

"It is a Christian celebration, dedicated to a Moorish saint called San Fermin."

"I didn't know there were Moorish saints."

"The Moors once ruled this land after the Christian upstarts had pulled it down from its lofty Roman greatness. It was inevitable that in a moment of weakness one would succumb to carpenter worship. Perhaps while we are here, you would like to light a candle to San Fermin."

"No, thanks."

"Good," said Chiun, leading Remo to a street stall where a vendor sold an assortment of red cotton sashes and scarves.

After bickering with the merchant, the Master of Sinanju purchased one of each item and offered them to Remo with a polite dip of a bow and an air of quiet ceremony.

"Don these."

Remo examined the items critically. "What are they?"

"What do they look like?"

"A red sash and matching scarf."

"Then you should know which to wrap around your neck and which goes about your flabby middle without instruction from me."

"My middle is not flabby," said Remo, snatching the limp swatches of red cotton from Chiun's fingers. "You have gained over an ounce in the last five years. I suspect you of sneaking sweets when my back is turned."

"Your back is never turned," said Remo, tying the sash around his waist so the broad end hung over his right front pocket. The red scarf went around his neck with a quick tie.

"Now what?" he asked.

Chiun beckoned with a crooked yellow finger. "Follow."

At what appeared from the outside to be a stadium, Chiun bought them tickets and they took front-row seats among a growing crowd of drunken revelers. Many were passed out in their seats.

"We going to see a bullfight?"

"You will not," said Chiun.

"Huh?"

And the Master of Sinanju leaped without warning into the dirt-floored ring.

"What are you doing?" demanded Remo, jumping down to join him.

He looked around warily. There was no sign of any bulls or horses or matadors. In fact, the more he looked around, the more Remo was reminded of a rodeo ring. At one end a wooden corral gate lay agape. It led out of the ring and up a narrow chute obviously meant for the bulls.

The Master of Sinanju ignored his pupil and instead went padding about the ring, his head bowed, his eyes intent on the ground upon which he walked.

"What are you looking for?" asked Remo.

"Shush," said Chiun, continuing his perambulations.

When he reached a certain spot, Chiun indicated it with a pointing fingernail. "Dig."

"For what?"

"Dig, and the what will reveal itself."

Shrugging, Remo dropped to one knee and began scratching dirt away from the spot where the Master of Sinanju pointed so sternly.

From the stands they were watched. But not challenged.

Remo used his hands to spank away the loose dirt that had been pounded dry by the tread of men and the hooves of beasts. When he reached the darker, moister subsoil, he used the tips of his fingers to excavate. A pile formed, pale at the base but darker as it grew.