Warren Murphy: Sue Me

"Maybe he's not dead," said one of the divers.

"And maybe he don't have to breathe either. Let's get out of here. You can even see the vibrations now. "

Not only had the sign fallen, but across the vast dark lake little waves appeared like the ridges of a giant washboard. Along the shore the trees quivered and dropped their leaves, and down in the darkness of the silt Remo Williams searched for the opening.

As soon as he was out of sight, Remo took off the mask and rubber suit, allowing his skin to acquaint itself with the cool water. It was not that he stopped breathing. He would never completely stop breathing. Instead he used the technique borrowed from the Indian fakirs, who buried themselves alive for hours at a time. By slowing the rhythms of his body he required less oxygen than an unconscious person. Yet his nervous system functioned at peak efficiency. He knew that his muscles suffered from the reduced oxygen absorption, but it wasn't muscles that made Remo a Master of Sinanju.

The problem was finding the opening in the silt. At the top, it felt like some strange oil on his body, but farther down it became densely packed like unset concrete. Even farther down it was like moving through settled clay: hard, dense, packed clay. Remo kept his eyes shut and moved along the cement base, pausing every few moments to let his palms press open-fingered against the coarse concrete, trying to distinguish the normal vibrations of the water going through the sluice from those which seized the concrete mass and were obviously growing.

The plan was to create an opening through an entranceway beneath the sluice. Remo got there and found the metal plate Rutherford had predicted would be there. It had to be moved in one direction or another, and Remo couldn't figure out which. As the vibrations forced him back, Remo cut through the silt once again to reach the plate. Something had to be done with the plate. He sensed the dam might go at any second. Taking the plate in his hands, Remo did what he did to old television sets, whose workings he also didn't understand. He gave it a kick. The only difference was that nowadays he kicked televisions very, very gently.

The kick was backed up by the weight of all the damned-up water guided by the rhythms of Remo's body. His foot went through the metal like a torpedo. With a muffled sucking sound, the silt was pulled through the hole, creating a rhythm of its own. The turbines stopped, clogged by mud. The dam quivered and the vibrations ceased. But Remo saw too late that it was a trap. Someone had expected him.

The only thing in the narrow sluiceway between the open air above and the lake itself was Remo Williams-and a small, carefully placed explosive device. When the explosive charge detonated, he was propelled by the force of tons of lake water, shooting out through the sluice like a pea through a straw, the mud behind him and the rocky riverbed below.

Blinded momentarily by the mud, he almost did the one thing that could get him killed: he started to tighten his muscles against the impact. But his muscles knew better. They had been trained too well by Chiun, and so instead he stretched out like a long strand of silk. As he let the mud and water wash over him, becoming one with the lake and the riverbed, he let the mud behind him absorb the impact of the explosion.

He moved down the shallow river for about a quarter of a mile and then climbed up the bank. Behind him the dam disgorged mud and water, but not so much as to cause flooding. The dam had stopped vibrating. America's pride had held.

Along the lakeshore, Calvin Rutherford and the other engineers were reading their meters and cheering. The sluice could be closed and the smashed turbine would be replaced. As a side benefit the powerful current was even desilting the lake, carrying tons downriver. At this rate, they would probably not have to dredge.

When Chiun saw Remo walk up the road covered with mud, he felt joy that Remo was alive. In an instant he knew his joy was to be fleeting.

Remo walked into the motel room with a big grin. "Well, here I am, little father. Alive."

"So far," said Chiun. "But I have come to the conclusion we have only one chance."

"What's the one chance?" asked Remo as he headed for the shower to wash off the mud. Even his pores had breathed it in under the pressure of the water, and his body had to breathe it out again.

"We must join this Palmer, Rizzuto, and Schwartz, who we are not allowed to kill, and eliminate Smith for them. That is our only way. And it is righteous."

"How is betrayal righteous?" said Remo, stepping into the shower. He didn't use soap, because soap, which actually burned off dirt with lye, left its fatty residue still burning his skin.

"It is not we who are betraying, the mad emperor Smith, but he who is betraying us."

"I thought we worked for him."

"Assassins are not used as targets. in decent civilized lands, like India, people appreciate a great assassin for what he is. In America he is turned into a palace guard, some local official who investigates things. A catcher of thieves."

"Detective," said Remo.

"That," said Chiun.

"I used to be a cop," said Remo.

"All this training, the awesomeness of Sinanju, and you are still a cop."

Remo paused before turning on the water. "Little father. I have not dishonored Sinanju. I have not learned nothing. But you did teach it to an American. So I am an American and I am Sinanju."

"One cannot be both Sinanju and American, two things at the same time. This is impossible."

"But I am."

"Then get rid of the lesser one, or die."

"Okay," said Remo. "I'll get rid of Sinanju."

"You can't," said Chiun. "I have trained you. You are Sinanju. You can no more rid yourself of Sinanju than a cloud can forfeit its air, or the sun its light, or the river its water."

"So I'll stay stuck."

"You could try ridding yourself of being American. There are two hundred million of those. The world will not mourn the loss of one."

"You know that's not possible either."

"Then, my son, you are dead, unless we kill Smith. There is precedence for it. Good precedence."

"You mean a tale of Sinanju? Which one was it? The Great Wang, and the Ming emperor? Let's see, he pointed out that an assassin never lost a king, so that certainly wouldn't be the Great Wang, or even the Lesser Wang, who did only one assignment, which wasn't all that important anyway. Then we have the middle period when the House of Sinanju worked Asia heavily. Could it have been the gateway to the West, when we served Rome and the caesars who never took our advice? No, I think we worked for Livia, except she was a chronic do-it-yourselfer, if I remember correctly, poisoning people. Then there was the later Western period of Ivan the Righteous, whom the rest of the world called the Terrible but whom we knew as a man of honor who paid on time. "

"Do not mock the glory of Sinanju? You know perfectly well it was Sayak, during the middle period, a time of prosperity and peace and honor."

"Wasn't that something to do with a love affair? Some tawdry thing a private detective in America might handle? An unfaithful spouse?"

"Like a typical American, you remembered the dirt and missed the point. If you remembered the point we would happily join with this firm of lawyers right now and kill Smith. This already has good, solid precedent in the lesson of Master Sayak, who, when faced with death, when faced with a bitter, bitter choice, made the right choice and continued the line of Masters of Sinanju. For there is one thing a Master must know before all else: to continue the line he must not allow himself to be killed. There is nothing any more noble in death than there is something noble about rotting fruit. One does whatever possible to delay that inevitability. Fruit and life." Chiun folded his hands in his kimono and shut his eyes. Remo had learned well the tale of Master Sayak from the histories of Sinanju. As he though about it, he returned to his shower, turning on both the hot and cold water slowly, until a warm, comfort able mixture streamed over his body. Strategically Chiun was not all that wrong. The tale of Master Sayak applied all too well to this situation.