Warren Murphy: Blood Ties

The stewardess smiled back. "You mean decompressing, sir."

"If you say so," Remo said and left the aircraft. He went into the terminal and grabbed the handiest flight, not caring where it was going so long as it was in the air within five minutes.

No, Remo didn't want a drink. He still wasn't hungry either. He thought he had made that clear the last three times the stewardess had come to his seat to ask.

"Yes, sir," the stewardess said. "I just like to make sure. My job is to look after the needs of my passengers." She was a willowy blonde in a tight blue uniform set off by a bright yellow scarf. Her eyes were such an intense blue that it almost hurt to look at them. Under other circumstances, Remo thought he might have become interested in her---other circumstances being when she wasn't practically shoving her perfumed breasts in his face every five minutes to ask the same question.

"Why don't you check the other passengers?" Remo suggested.

"They're fine," she said, batting her sparkling blue eyes.

"No, we're not," several people chorused at once.

"What?" the stewardess asked. Her nametag said Lorna.

"We're thirsty. Some of us are hungry. When are you going to stop messing around with that guy and take care of us?" This from a matronly woman in the third row.

Lorna looked up. Most of the forward rows of the aircraft were filled with unhappy faces. They were all pointed in her direction. The drink-serving cart was blocking the aisle, preventing anyone from getting to the rest room.

"Oh," she said. Her pouting face flushed with color. "I'm sorry. Please be patient."

She looked back down at Remo and immediately forgot her embarrassment. A pleasured smile swept her face. "Where were we?" she asked Remo.

"I was telling you that I was fine and you were having trouble with your ears," said Remo, who didn't like all the attention coming his way. It wasn't the stewardess's fault. All women reacted to him like that. It was one of the side effects of Sinanju training. Chiun had once explained that when a pupil reached a certain level in the art of Sinanju, all aspects of his being began to harmonize with themselves and others could sense it. Men reacted with fear; women with sexual appetite.

But as women's appetite for him increased, Remo found he was less and less interested in them. Part of it was the Sinanju sexual techniques Chiun had taught him. They reduced sex to a rigid but monotonous series of steps that sent women into frenzies but sent Remo reaching for a book. The other part was psychology: when you could have any woman you wanted, anytime, anywhere, you didn't want any woman.

That had always bothered Remo. When he had reached that level, he had asked Chiun, "What good is being so desirable if you lose interest in sex?"

Chiun had sat him down. "A master of Sinanju has two purposes: to support his village and to train the next Master. "

"Yeah?"

"It is obvious, Remo."

"Not to me, Chiun. What does that have to do with sex?"

Chiun had thrown up his hands. "To train a new Master, you must have the raw material. A pupil. In your case, that is the rawest material of all, but I hope when it is time for you to train a new master, you have better material. A member of my village, preferably one belonging to the bloodline of my family."

"I still don't get it."

"You are very dense, Remo," Chiun had said. "When it is time for you to train your successor, you must take a Sinanju maiden for your wife. You will have a son and you will train him."

"What has that got to do with anything?"

Chiun sighed and folded his hands in his lap. Finally, he said, "I will try to make this simple enough for even you to follow. When it is time for you to select a maiden from my village to produce your successor, nothing must stand in the way of that selection. Therefore you have learned the ways to make a woman want to breed with you. Do you understand now?"

"Oh, I get it. The all-important next Master comes first. It doesn't matter what the girl thinks about it, does it?"

Chiun raised a long-nailed finger. "The secrets Sinanju has taught you will conveniently sweep aside all obstacles to your happiness."

"I think that sucks," Remo said. "I don't want some woman to breed with me because some trick of mine makes her think I'm irresistible. I want it to be a woman who loves me for myself."

"There are no blind maidens in my village," Chiun said. "Heh-heh. There are no blind maidens in Sinanju." And pleased with his little joke, Chiun had left Remo alone with his disappointment over his new sexual powers.

Over the years, it had only gotten worse. So when Remo had found an attractive stewardess practically crawling into his lap, his interest totally vanished.

"Are you sure there's nothing?" Lorna asked again.

"Well, there's one thing," Remo said.

"Anything. Just name it."

"Would you buy a ticket for a concert to aid assassins?" Remo asked.

"Will you be there?"

"Sure. Me and Willie Nelson."

"I'll go. So will my friends. Put me down for a hundred tickets. "

"Thank you," Remo said. "That's very encouraging."

"Anytime. Anything else?"

"Yes. Where's this flight going?"

"You bought the ticket. Don't you know?"

"I was in a hurry. Where?"

"Salt Lake City. Have you been there before?"

"I'll let you know when I get there," said Remo, who had traveled so much over the last decade that all cities kind of blurred together.

"Do that," Lorna said. "And if you need a place to stay, just let me know."

But they never got to Salt Lake City. Over Utah, a man went into the washroom and came out with a machine pistol.

"This is a hijacking," the man said. And to show he was serious, he fired a short burst through the cabin ceiling. The jet instantly began losing pressure. The seat-belt sign came on and the overhead panels popped open to disgorge the yellow plastic oxygen masks. The pilot threw the plane into a steep dive, leveling off at fourteen thousand feet, where the air was still thin but breathable. Dust and grit flew into the cabin. The cold air misted and turned white.

"Please stay calm," Lorna said over the sound system. "Slip the mask firmly over your mouth and pull on the plastic tube. Breathe normally." She demonstrated the proper method even as the jetliner lost altitude at an alarming rate.

There was no panic. Except for the hijacker. He was panicking.

"What is happening? What is happening?" he repeated, waving his machine pistol.

"We're about to crash," said Remo, who appeared suddenly beside him.

"I won't allow it," said the skyjacker. "Tell the pilot not to crash. My death will not aid the cause."

"What is your cause anyway?" Remo asked.

"Serbo-Croatian genocide," said the frightened man.

"Causing or avenging?" Remo said.

"Avenging."

"How does hijacking an American jet solve a European problem?"

"Because it is wonderful public relations. American press gets me coverage all over the world and most of the reporters find some way to blame it all on America. It is the new way," the skyjacker said.

"This is an even newer way," Remo said, and with a blurring motion, he took the hijacker's weapon and blended it into a new shape, a sort of fuzzy metallic ball with the man's two hands firmly encased inside.

"Please. Everyone, sit down. We are about to land." It was Lorna's voice and she was standing in the aisle as if they were about to land at an airport and not in the open spaces of Utah. Remo felt a wave of admiration for her courage. He slapped the hijacker into a seat.

"I'll settle with you later," Remo said and plopped into a seat on the other side of the aisle.

For a long time, there was no sound. But the ground got closer. Then there was a grinding noise as the jetliner hit. It seemed to go on forever.