Warren Murphy - Return Engagement

"What does this mean?" asked Mah-Li, after the truth became clear.

"Chiun's gone," Remo said. "He left during the middle of the night."

"But why would he leave? This is his home. He has longed for Sinanju ever since he departed for America."

"I think he felt left out," Remo said at last.

The villagers of Sinanju were distraught. The women wept. The men howled their anguish to the sky. The children, frightened by the sounds, ran and hid. All had the same plaintive cry. All asked the same burning question. All feared the answer.

It was Pullyang, the caretaker, who addressed it to the new Master, Remo.

"Did he take the treasure with him?"

And when Remo barked, "No!" joy filled the village like the lifting of storm clouds.

"Shame, shame on you all," scolded Mah-Li. "The Master Chiun has protected us and fed us for as long as most of us have lived our lives. Shame that you should be so uncaring."

"Thanks, Mah-Li," said Remo, as the villagers slinked away.

"But where would the Master go?" she asked in a quieter voice.

Remo was standing in the mud outside of Chiun's house when the question was asked. The light rain was steadily obliterating any possible trace of footsteps, and the Master of Sinanju, whose step would not wrinkle a silk-sheeted bed, never left a discernible trail anyway.

But, oddly, there were traces visible in the melting mud. A deeper footstep here, a faint thread of gray kimono silk there. Could Chiun be so upset, Remo wandered, that he did not take the usual care in walking?

With the curious villagers trailing behind him, Remo retraced Chiun's path out of the village and up the lone trail through the rocks to the one road leading in and out of the village.

At the crest of the hill, Remo looked down the dirt road, which, at a respectful distance, widened into three black highways, built by the leader of the People's Republic of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, to atone for a transgression against Sinanju made not long ago. One highway ran east; the others veered north and south.

Chiun's sandaled footsteps led as far as the end of the dirt road. Remo saw faint wet imprints of his steps at the beginning of the south highway.

Chiun had gone to Pyongyang, capital of North Korea. And from there, who knew?

What was it Chiun had written? "I go now to live in another land-the only land in which I have known contentment and the respect of a fair and generous emperor." Normally that would have been Persia, but even Chiun admitted that Persia was a mess these days, ruled by priests, not true rulers. China, then. No, the Chinese were thieves, according to Chiun. Japan? Worse. When Remo had eliminated the Pacific rim and Europe from his mind, only Africa and North America were left.

Could Chiun have meant America?

The farmer from Sunchon would have been glad to give the elderly wise man with the stovepipe hat a ride, he said.

"Then why do you not stop?" Chinn asked, walking alongside.

"I have no room in my cart," was the reply. The cart was drawn by a lone bullock. "See? It is full of barley, which I am taking to market."

Chiun, without breaking stride, peered into the square back of the two-wheeled cart. Heaps of barley lay there, soaking up the light rain.

"It is good barley. Do you mind if I walk with you?" asked Chiun innocently.

"If you wish, stranger."

"I am no stranger," corrected Chiun. "Every man knows me."

"I do not," the farmer said reasonably.

And because Chiun was traveling incognito, he did not tell the farmer who he was. Any who wished to follow him would have to work at it. Not that anyone would.

After a time, the farmer noticed that the tired bullock was stepping more smartly. The shower had tapered off and the clouds were parting in the sky. It was going to be a good day after all. Then, realizing that the old wise man had been silent too long, he looked back to see if he still walked beside the cart.

He did not. He was placidly sitting in the rear of the cart. The empty cart.

"Where is my barley?" the farmer screeched, pulling the bullock to a halt.

"You have a defective cart," said Chinn evenly. "It sprang a leak." The farmer then noticed the trail of barley beans-a single ragged line extending down the highway back to the West Korea Bay.

"Why did you not tell me?" The farmer was fairly jumping up and down. His conical hat fell to the asphalt.

Chiun shrugged. "You did not ask."

"What will I do?" wailed the farmer. "I cannot pick them up one by one. I am ruined."

"No, only your cart is ruined," said Chiun. "Take me to Pyongyang airport and I will give you a gold coin."

"Two gold coins," said the farmer.

"Do not press your luck," warned Chiun, arranging his traveling kimono so that it covered the fingernail-size hole that had appeared in the bottom of the cart, just wide enough to let one barley bean at a time fall out, like the grains of sand through the neck of an hourglass. "It is fortunate that I happened to be traveling with you at this unhappy time."

The Master of Sinanju was informed at the People's Democratic Airport that, no, he could not book a seat on a flight to the West. The North Korean airline did not fly to the West. If he wanted to go to Russia, and he had the proper documentation, fine. If he wished to fly to China, that, too, was possible. From Russia or China, he could obtain connections to any other proper destination in the Communist world.

"Seoul," said the Master of Sinanju, still refusing to identify himself. "I can change for a Western flight in Seoul."

The airport guards arrested the Master of Sinanju as soon as the words were out of his mouth. They called him a defector and a lackey of the West.

Chiun's arrest lasted about as long as the epithets hung in the air around him.

The two security guards found their rifles had jumped from their hands and embedded themselves, muzzlefirst, in the ceiling. Plaster fell on their bare heads. While they were looking up, they required major surgery. Very suddenly.

The head surgeon at the People's Democratic Emergency Ward wanted to know how the two guards had managed to enter military service despite their obvious congenital defect.

They were not believed when they explained that they were not really Siamese twins, born fused at the hip, but the victims of a particularly vicious Western attack. After surgery, they were court-martialed for concealing medical disabilities.

By that time, Chiun had been deposited at Kimpo Air Base in South Korea in a North Korean military craft which had its markings removed. The pilot and copilot, who had volunteered for the mission, swallowed poison upon landing in Seoul, capital of South Korea.

Chiun, oblivious of the fact that he had precipitated a major international incident, stepped off the aircraft and disappeared into the drizzle and fog of midmorning. He was one step ahead of the South Korean and American troops who converged upon the plane.

Hours later, a Strategic Air Command bomber took off from Kimpo on a routine flight back to the United States. Over Hawaii, the pilot and copilot were more than a little astonished when they heard a knocking on the cabin door.

They looked at one another. As far as they knew, the rear of the craft was empty. There shouldn't be anyone in hack.

"Maybe a maintenance worker fell asleep," the pilot suggested.

"I'll take a look," said the copilot, removing his earphones.

When he opened the sealed door, he saw a little Korean in a gray robe.

The little Korean smiled pleasantly.

"You speakee English?" asked the copilot.

"Better than you," retorted Chiun. "I have been waiting patiently for many hours. When are meals served on this flight?"

Chapter 9

In 1949 they had told him there was no hope.