Warren Murphy: The Eleventh Hour

"A mistake," said Colonel Ditko. He had gone to India once. When he had stepped off the plane, the smell had hit him like a thick hot wall. Even in the modern air terminal, the mixture of chaos and filth was overpowering. He immediately reboarded the Aeroflot jet and returned home, later sending a subordinate to finish the task assigned to him. As punishment, he had been given the worst assignments in the KGB and rotated often. North Korea was only the latest odious post Colonel Viktor Ditko suffered in.

"I became friendly with the minister," Sammy said. "I questioned him about his remark, about the deep ties between India and Korea. It was then he whispered a word I hadn't heard since childhood. The word was Sinanju."

"I see," said Colonel Ditko, who did not see at all.

"The minister told me that India had been one of the greatest clients for the Masters of Sinanju. Sinanju was still highly regarded in their halls of power, even though no Master of Sinanju had worked for an Indian potentate in generations. We compared stories. This man had heard virtually identical stories. He confirmed that the current Master of Sinanju still lived, and had actually visited India only months before. The minister didn't know the details. It was very secret. But the visit somehow involved the United States."

Colonel Viktor Ditko bolted upright in his chair. It creaked.

"Involved. How?"

"I don't know. That didn't interest me so much at the time. But the journalistic possibilities did. Here was a missing piece of history. A secret international power that ran through history like an invisible thread, touching everything, but recorded by no history book. Except the one maintained by the Master of Sinanju. I decided to go to Sinanju."

For the first time, Colonel Ditko nodded in understanding. "You wished to steal the treasure," he said.

"No. For the story. This was one of the great journalistic stories of the century-of any century."

There was that word again, thought Colonel Ditko, "journalistic." It must be some American synonym for "espionage."

"You wanted the secret of Sinanju for yourself."

"No. I wanted to tell the world about Sinanju, its history, its effect on history."

"Tell the world? You had inside information on this great secret and you wanted to tell others?"

"Yes, of course. I am a journalist."

"No, you are a fool. This is very valuable information. If true, the country which employs the Master of Sinanju could be very powerful. But only if this is done in secret."

"Exactly. It is being done in secret."

"I do not understand."

"The Master of Sinanju isn't in retirement. He is operating in the modern world, just as his ancestors always have. It's all on the tape. The old man I spoke to told me everything."

Colonel Viktor Ditko felt a chill course up his spine. The room, already cool, seemed colder still. He knew what the Korean-American was leading up to. And the knowledge parched his tongue. He had never been so frightened by something that it dried the juices in his mouth. But at this moment, Colonel Viktor Ditko's tongue sat like a wad of dog hair in his mouth.

"The Master of Sinanju is working for the United States of America," the younger man said.

"This is on the tape?" Ditko demanded.

"Precisely," Sammy Kee said.

"And you want what?" Colonel Ditko asked.

"I want to get back to America. So I can put this story on television."

"Why do you wish to harm your country?"

Sammy Kee looked surprised. "I don't wish to harm my country. I love my country. That's why I want to improve it." He smiled hopefully; surely this sophisticated Russian would understand that.

"You are an idiot," Ditko said. "Why did you not leave the country the way you entered?"

"When I went back to the place where I buried my raft, it wasn't there. I was chased by soldiers but I got away. Now I can't get out of the country. Without an identity card, I can't get food. I haven't eaten in days. I just want to get home and live in peace."

"I see," said Colonel Ditko, who understood that an empty stomach sometimes spoke louder than a man's loyalty.

"Now may I see the ambassador?" Sammy Kee asked.

"You realize that this is not true proof. It is just an old man telling stories. No more credible than your grandfather."

"Sinanju is there. You can see it for yourself. The treasure house is there. I saw it."

"You saw the treasure?"

Sammy shook his head. "No, only the treasure house. It was sealed and I was told that the hand that unsealed it would strangle its own throat if that hand were not of Sinanju."

"And you let an old man's warning stop you?"

"That old man's warning chilled me to my marrow." Ditko shrugged.

"There may be something in what you say. I, too, have heard tales something like what you speak of, in one of our Asian republics. If the Master of Sinanju exists and is an American agent, this could mean much."

"I want to make a deal with the ambassador. Please."

"Idiot! This is too great for an ambassador. If this is what you say, I must deliver this tape to Moscow in person."

"Take me with you, then."

"No. Understand me, American. You live or die at my whim. First, you will transcribe the words contained on your tape. In Korean, and in English."

"I'm never going to see the ambassador, am I?" asked Sammy Kee, who broke into tears again.

"Of course not. Your discovery will be my passport out of this backward country. Perhaps to great rank and responsibility. I will not share it with anyone outside the Politburo."

"What about me?"

"I will decide later. If you set foot outside this room, I will turn you over to the military police. They will shoot you as a spy. Or I may shoot you myself."

"I am an American citizen. These things don't happen to American citizens," Kee said.

"Not in America, young man. But you are in North Korea now and the rules are different."

Ditko left the room and Sammy Kee began to weep. He knew he would never see San Francisco again.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo and he had returned to Detroit to destroy an American institution.

In any other city in America, arson was not an institution, but a crime. However, in Detroit, since the 1960's, the institution known as Devil's Night had resulted in destruction of property only a little less costly than the firebombing of the German city of Dresden during World War II.

Devil's Night had started as a Halloween prank, when trick-or-treaters had torched a row of warehouses. Because the warehouses were abandoned, no one took the arson seriously. But then it was repeated the next year. And every year after. The torchings grew into a Detroit tradition, and when the city ran out of warehouses and other abandoned buildings in the early 1970's, the tradition spilled over into residential areas. Then people began to worry. By that time it was too late. The animals had been allowed to run free too long. Now Devil's Night was an institution, and no one was safe in Detroit on Halloween night.

This year the city council of Detroit had instituted a dusk-to-dawn curfew. It was an unprecedented move. Curfews, Remo had always thought, were stuff you found in banana republics. Walking down the deserted streets of Detroit, it made him angry that a major American city would be reduced to this, just because of a small lawless minority.

"This is barbaric," Remo said to his companion. Remo was a trim, good-looking man with deep-set dark eyes and high cheekbones. He wore black. Black slacks and a T-shirt. There was nothing unusual about him except for his strangely thick wrists and the fact that he moved like a dark panther. His feet, happening to walk across the windblown pages of a discarded newspaper, did not raise even a crinkle of sound.