Warren Murphy: Blood Ties

And then there was silence.

Chapter 3

Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju, last of an unbroken line that dated from before the days of the Great Wang, first of the major Sinanju assassins, sat unmoving on his woven mat. His hazel eyes were closed. His impassive countenance, the exact color and texture of Egyptian papyrus, might have been molded from clay by delicate fingers. Even his wispy beard moved not, so deep was his meditation.

For three hours he had sat thus, serene and unmoving. For three hours, he had searched his thoughts, prayed his prayers, and silently asked the counsel of his ancestors, the great line of Sinanju. Three hours, and Chiun-hopefully to be known to future generations as Chiun the Great Teacher-found that the decision still eluded him like a spring butterfly eluded the net.

At length, the tufts of hair over his ears trembled. The eyes of the Master of Sinanju opened like uncovered agate stones, clear and bright and ageless. He floated to his feet in a smooth motion. The decision had been made.

He would wear the gray silk kimono and not the blue one with the orange tigers worked on the breast.

Chiun padded silently to the fourteen steamer trunks resting in a far corner of the apartment. The trunks were never unpacked because of the dismal-no, the odious-work to which the Master had committed himself in this barbarian land of America. Odious. Yes. That would be the word he would use. Emperor Smith would understand Chiun's displeasure if he used that word. After all, Smith was white, and in Korean, in the old language of Chiun's ancestors, "odious" was a synonym for "whiteness." He would not mention that to Smith, however. He would only tell him that it was odious that Chiun must move from hotel room to hotel room like a vagrant, never having a place to rest his head, never having a home in which to unpack his fourteen steamer trunks. It was no way for a Master of Sinanju to live.

Chiun found the gray silk kimono and even though he was alone in the hotel suite, he went into the bedroom to change, taking care to close the door tightly and to pull the shades. He emerged moments later and left the hotel, which was near Central Park.

On the street, he hailed a cab. The first three drove past without stopping.

Chiun responded by calmly walking into the path of the fourth cab to approach. The taxi screeched to a halt, the bumper coming to within a millimeter of Chiun's knees.

The driver stuck his head out the window and yelled, "Hey! What's with you?"

"Nothing is with me. I am alone. I would hire this conveyance."

"This is a cab, dummy, not a conveyance," said the driver. He pointed to his roof light. "See that. It's turned off. That means I'm already hired."

Chiun looked at the light, sniffed, and said, "I will pay you more."

"Huh?"

"I said I will pay you more than your present passenger. What price?"

"Buddy, I don't know what boat you fell off, but that ain't the way it's done in America. First come, first served. Now get out of my way."

"I see," said Chiun, seeming to drop the golden coin he had plucked from his kimono as an inducement for the driver. The coin bounced, rolled, and came to a stop beside the cab's front tire. Chiun swept out a long-nailed finger and retrieved the coin. The taxicab suddenly listed to port, air escaping from the settling left-front tire with a lazy hissing.

"What gives?" said the driver.

"Your tire," said Chiun. "It gives up its life. Too bad. Your fault for buying American."

The driver climbed out and looked at the flat tire. "Dammit," he said. "I musta run over a nail back there. Hey, lady, come on out of there. I'm gonna have to change this."

A middle-aged woman with oversize glasses and an undersize dress draping her big body stepped out of the cab.

"I'm late already," she said. "I can't wait."

"Suit yourself," said the driver, yanking a tire jack and lug wrench from his trunk. Muttering to himself, he scrunched down beside the offending wheel and began working to loosen the lug nuts. He looked up when he heard the passenger door slamming shut.

"Hey? What do you think you're doing?"

From the back of the cab came a squeaky voice. "I am in no rush," said the Master of Sinanju pleasantly. "I will wait for you to finish."

"My lucky day," grumbled the driver.

"It is fate," said Chiun, delicately flicking a shred of vulcanized rubber from his fingernail, where it had caught after he had withdrawn it from the unfortunate tire.

Three hours later, the cab dropped Chiun off at the stone entrance to Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, north of Manhattan. At first the driver had not wanted to take Chiun that far, but after some haggling and an examination of the old Oriental's gold coins, the driver had agreed. "This is a different route," said Chiun as they passed the city limits of Asbury Park. "I have never come this way before."

"New road," said the driver, who was sure that the old gook did not know that Asbury Park was due south of New York while Rye was due north. He was getting double the fare shown on his meter and had visions of taking the rest of the week off after this one fare. "We're almost there."

"You have said that before," Chiun said.

"It was true before. It's true now. Just hang on." After touring Hoboken, Newark, and the shopping malls of Paramus, New Jersey, the driver finally wended his way toward Rye. He was very courteous when he let Chiun off at his destination.

"That'll be $1,356. Not counting tip, of course."

"That is more than I paid the last time," Chiun said.

"Rates've gone up."

"Have they tripled?"

"Could be," said the driver. He smiled politely. He was thinking of the rest of the week off. Maybe going to a ball game.

"I will make you a deal," said Chiun, counting the coins in his change purse.

"No deals," protested the driver. "You agreed to double the meter."

"True," said Chiun. "But I did not agree to a tour of the provinces south and west of New York."

The driver shrugged. "I got a little lost. It happens."

"And I did not agree not to destroy your wheels."

"Destroy my . . . You've gotta be kidding."

Chiun stepped from the cab and kicked the right-rear tire. "What will you give me in return for this wheel?" he asked. "It is a good wheel, firm and sturdy. It will carry you far along your difficult return journey."

"I won't give you squat. That's my tire."

Chiun reached over and drove an index finger into the tire. When he removed his finger, the tire let go with a bang. The car settled suddenly.

"Hey! What'd you do to my tire?"

"No matter. You can change it. A man who charges $1,356 for a simple ride must have many extra wheels." The driver watched as the little Oriental-he had to be nearly eighty, the driver thought-walked to the front of the cab and thoughtfully surveyed both front tires.

"Will you take $947 for the pair?" asked Chiun.

"That's robbery."

Chiun shook a long-nailed finger in the air.

"No," he said. "It is haggling. You haggled with me. Now I haggle with you. Quickly. Do you accept?"

"All right. Yes. Don't blow the tires. I gotta drive all the way back to the city."

"Through Asbury Park," said Chiun, walking to the left-rear wheel. "Good. Now I still owe you $409 for your services. Will you give $500 for this remaining wheel?"

"But then I'd owe you ninety-one dollars," the driver protested.

"No checks," said Chiun.

Dr. Harold W. Smith did not like to be interrupted but when his secretary described his visitor, he pressed the concealed button that dropped the desktop computer monitor into a well in his Spartan oak desk.

It was just force of habit because while the secret computer system accessed every other major computer and information-retrieval system in the world and therefore knew all the world's secrets, Chiun would have had no idea what it all meant. Only Smith as head of the secret agency CURE understood it. Chiun couldn't, and Remo was hopeless with machinery. He had trouble dialing a telephone; a computer was beyond his reach.