Warren Murphy: An Old Fashioned War

"Good. Let them rot," said Chiun.

"Sir, if they are dead, who carried the treasure farther, and why do I think they were poisoned?"

"Because you are a sex-crazed white woman and never had a logical thought in your head," said Chiun.

"They were poisoned, I am sure, because that was the quietest way to get rid of them after they did their work, and then one man with a shovel could cover them with the loose garbage and drive back to Pyongyang, where he could agree to come to your village as often as you want to help you look for the treasure. Your treasure has been in the only one safe place it could have been hidden all along. Right here in Sinanju."

Anna thought Chiun was so excited about the find that he did not remember to thank her, but Remo explained Chiun had difficulty with thanks. This of course did not mean that anyone could ever forget to thank Chiun. When it came to gratitude, he was very careful to weigh and measure.

The entire village dug into the little garbage heap, some with shovels, some with their bare hands. They sang as they worked, about the glory of their House of Sinanju.

But they always sang as they worked while the Masters of Sinanju were around. Chiun did not forget nor let them forget that when he was gone earning tribute for the entire village, they had not lifted a finger when the treasure was stolen.

They covered their faces when they came down to the decomposing bodies, but under the bodies was fresh, easily dug earth, and only the thinnest layer of earth covered the first trunk of valuables. All night they cleaned and carried and hauled, while Chiun directed one group here and one there to lay the treasures before the doorway of the House of Sinanju. He and Remo would put them where they belonged. This for Remo and Chiun would be a labor of love.

"May I come in?" asked Anna. She had helped locate the treasure. She had saved it for Remo and Chiun. She was actually feeling good for the cranky old racist.

"No," said Chiun.

"I do believe I was instrumental in your regaining the historical treasure that meant so much to your lines of assassins," said Anna.

"You had some deal with Remo. Probably for sex," said Chiun.

"No. I stopped a war," said Remo, making sure the Mayan gold was not mixed with the lighter and shinier Thai gold.

Chiun was proud that Remo would remember the difference between the two.

"Well, we can deal with Arieson now."

"I've heard about your deals, Chiun. What are you going to give him now?" asked Anna.

"A pinch of something or other," said Chiun. He had spotted the casks of faience beads from the Third Dynasty of the upper kingdom of the Nile. "To the left, along with the alabaster cats, thank you," he said to the Sinanju workers.

"You don't understand, Master of Sinanju, Arieson is not some mindless mystical thing that you could understand. Smith, an extremely intelligent and perceptive man, and I have put our heads together."

"Twin cabbages," said Chiun, seeing the great damask cloth, named for the city of its origin, Damascus. "Ah, the beautiful Abbasids," said Chiun, being reminded of the treachery of that dynasty. And then of course there were the treasures from Baghdad, the pinnacle of civilization, which the warrior Genghis Khan destroyed, and then of course died for that abomination.

"The old Baghdad," said Chiun, taking a bolt of silk centuries old but still perfect because of the denseness of its weave and the special perfection of its silkworms fed a secret diet by the wonderful caliphs in that wonderful city.

And of course, the gifts from the Greek tyrants, coming now over the hill, down the path toward the House of Sinanju. Chiun's hands were aflutter with joy. The Masters of Sinanju always had special affection for the Greek tyrants. While the Greeks never paid excessively, they always understood exactly the work they wanted. They were not ones to see imaginary plots behind every marble wall. They knew who had to be removed and got the best to do it, saving themselves much wealth in the long run.

"Mr. Arieson," said Anna, "in case you are interested, is an electronic force that feeds off its victims themselves. The victims are human beings who respond to negative military impulses. The reason you and Remo cannot be affected is you are so perfectly trained that all your basic responses are harnessed. Other men fight their fear; your fear powers you. You fight nothing because you are one with every element of yourselves. Do you understand?"

"You slept with a woman who is going to explain Sinanju to you?" asked Chiun.

Remo made a motion of the inexplicability of women, and stopped the Mali iron statues before they were brought too far forward.

"Those go back a bit," said Remo.

"Are you coming?" asked Anna.

"No, he's not," said Chiun.

"Let him answer," said Anna.

"I've got to put stuff away here first."

"Don't you want to see Mr. Arieson collapse in an electronic counterforce?"

"Sure, but I've got to straighten up the rooms first," said Remo. Chiun smiled. Remo could be a good boy at times. And Remo was his.

"He knows your little tricks cannot stop someone like Arieson," Chiun said.

"But he's not a someone. That's what Smith and I figured out, from all the evidence."

Chiun laughed. "You will never stop him. I will make you a bargain. If you in your ways stop Arieson, you may have Remo. If not, never set foot here again."

"You won't interfere with us because I'm white?" asked Anna.

"I promise," said Chiun.

"Hey, you can't promise me to anyone," said Remo.

"I can promise not to interfere," said Chiun.

"Done," said Anna.

"Done," said Chiun.

"I'll phone for you, Remo."

"Say good-bye to her, Remo."

But Remo ignored them both. Anna did not see it as she walked up the mud path toward the now lower hill at the entrance, but Remo did and he knew where it went. He had seen pictures like it in the tunnels under Rome. He watched three men laboriously carry it on their shoulders, but he ran out to help them. Holding the marble base lightly in his fingers, he alone walked the path back to the house, and wiping his feet free of mud he carried it into the house and into the room where its square marble base fit exactly into the indentation in the dark mahogany.

It was a marble bust. And the face had a beard and a fat neck, and obviously, four hundred years before the birth of Christ, Mr. Arieson had posed for it.

It took three days for Remo and Chiun to replace the treasure. During that time, word reached Poo that Remo, in payment for returning the treasure of Sinanju, was released from his marriage vows.

She came up to the house. She wept at the doorway. She wept louder when other villagers were about. She tore her hair. She screamed insults and curses. She said there would not be a soul in Sinanju who would not know how Remo had failed in his manhood in regard to her.

This was not much of a threat because everyone knew that on the wedding night anyhow. Poo had always been a bigmouth.

Poo stretched her great bulk over the steps of the doorway to the House of Sinanju, known in Sinanju as the House of the Masters, and declared to one and all she was an abandoned woman.

"When does this stop, Little Father?" asked Remo.

"On the fifth day," said Chiun.

"Why the fifth day?" asked Remo.

"By the fifth day she will be tired and ready," said Chiun, without explaining ready for what.

On the fifth day, Chiun went down to where Poo lay exhausted and whispered in her ear. She allowed him to help her up and walk her back down to her home in the village.

"Done," said Chiun on his return to the house.

"What did you say to her?" asked Remo.

"Forty-two thousand dollars cash," said Chiun. "What did you think I said to her? That everything would be all right? That the marriage was over? That she was better off without you?"