Warren Murphy: The Seventh Stone

But there was nothing in the spot where Chiun's voice had come from.

Behind him, Remo heard the voices of the acrobats moving toward him. And he caught the scent of perfume, a painfully familiar fragrance that stirred up far too many memories. It was Kim Kiley's perfume, rich and exotic, as individual as a fingerprint when it intermingled with the scent of her own body.

She was there and then there was another scent.

It was the smell of the tiny particles of residue that linger in a gun barrel after it has been fired. No matter how many times the gun was cleaned, the smell always remained for those with the ability to sense it.

Remo felt the air change again, heard the whisper of motion as a slender finger pulled backward slowly on a trigger. He wanted to yell "No" but there was no time, and instead his unspoken word turned into a thunderous roar of despair that shattered the stillness as Remo, sightless but unerring, reached out for the sound and brought his hand down on the white fragrant neck. He heard the dry-stick sound of snapping bone. Behind him, the acrobats were leaping toward him. He could feel the pressure of their bodies moving through the air.

But they never reached him. There was the sound of thump-thump-thump like three heavy stones dropped into a mud puddle. He knew their three bodies had ceased moving.

Suddenly, the air was clamorous with the sound of screams, shrieking and pounding feet as the crowd panicked and ran in all directions.

The searing pain of blindness still burned Remo's eyes. He groped for a moment in a world of white night, until he sensed the tall metal structure nearby. He had to turn off the lights; he had to see again; he had to find Chiun.

On the ground near the pole, Remo found a stone-cut glass tumbler dropped by one of the fleeing guests. He sensed its weight and then tossed it upward in a spiraling are.

He heard the shattering sound as the glass connected with its target. The mirror atop the pole smashed into a million crystalline fragments that rained down from the sky in a magnificent light show.

The other three lights still blinded him, but then he heard the glass of the lights breakpop, pop, pop-and a sudden darkness descended over the lawn. He blinked once and his vision began to return.

The first thing he saw was Chiun, turning away from having blasted out the three other lights with stones.

"You're all right?" Remo asked.

"All in all, I would have preferred Barbra Streisand," Chiun said.

Remo turned around and saw Kim. She lay next to Reginald Woburn III, the two of them stretched out amid a sea of glittering crystals from the broken light reflectors. To their left were the three last Oriental acrobats, their bodies twisted ungracefully in death.

Kim Kiley's perfect face stared skyward, her eyes masked by a pair of dark glasses. A pistol rested on the curled fingers of her right hand. Remo turned away.

"How did you know to kill her?" asked Chiun.

"I knew," Remo said quietly. "How did you know to kill him?"

"He was the leader; if we are ever to have any peace, he must go."

"You waited long enough," Remo said. "I was stumbling around there, not able to see, and you weren't anywhere."

"I found you though," Chiun said. "I just followed the sound of an ox stomping around and, naturally, it was you."

"I don't understand what they were doing," Remo said.

"They tried to make each of us think that the other was hurt," Chiun said. "We were their 'two plums.' "

"The two plums, cleaved, were bereft," Remo said.

"Correct. They thought if each of us thought the other was in danger, we would lower our defenses and become vulnerable," Chiun said.

"And you weren't hurt? You weren't in any danger?"

"Of course not," Chiun said disdainfully. He leaned over and picked up the fragments of a small black box. "It was some mechanical device, one of those tape-recorder things that does not record a television picture but only noise. I stepped on it when the unrecognizable screeching from it became unbearable."

"So we weren't cleaved and we aren't bereft," Remo said.

"As if any group of barbarians could cleave the House of Sinanju," Chiun said.

Both men paused to look around. The lawns were empty as far as the eye could see. The family of Wo had scattered.

Chapter Sixteen

"All's well that ends well," Remo said when they were back in the condominium.

"Nothing has ended," Chiun said.

"What do you mean? Woburn's dead; the family took off for the hills, what's left?"

"The House of Wo owes the House of Sinanju a public apology."

"Chiun, drop it," said Remo. "It's two thousand years old."

"A debt is a debt."

Chiun was standing by the window, looking out over the ocean. "There is already a new prince of the House of Wo. Let us hope he has the wisdom his predecessors had not."

Chiun stayed by the window until well after dark. Then Remo heard him move toward the front door. He heard the door open and a few whispered words and when he came back into the living room, Chiun was holding an envelope.

The old Korean opened it and read the message.

"It is an invitation," he said.

"You go. My dance card's filled," Remo said.

"It is an invitation for the House of Sinanju to meet with the House of Wo. We will both go."

"I'm part of the House of Sinanju?" Remo said.

Chiun looked up with an innocent expression. "Of course you are," he said.

"Thank you," said Remo.

"'Every house must have a cellar," Chiun said. "Heh, heh. You're the cellar of the House of Sinanju. Heh, heh. The cellar. Heh, heh."

They left at daybreak. Chiun wore a white-and-black ceremonial robe that Remo had never seen before. Emblazoned across the shoulders, in delicate silken embroidery, was a Korean character that Remo recognized as the symbol of the House of Sinanju. It translated as "center" and it meant that the House of Sinanju was the center of the world.

As the two men neared the porticoed front entrance to the sprawling mansion, the arched front doors swung open and four men emerged bearing two stretchers, which held the bodies of Reginald Woburn and Kim Kiley. Remo looked away as they passed and then back again as the island constable followed behind them.

"Ain't no morder," the constable muttered to himself. "Dat's for sure. No arrow in the heart, they be natural causes."

Remo and Chiun entered the mansion. Eerie silence testified that it was empty and Remo said, "I think maybe they're up to something. I don't trust them."

"We shall see," Chiun said quietly. "I am the Master of Sinanju and you are the next Master. This business with the Wos has gone on for too many years now. This day will see it end."

"Sure," Remo said. "We'll kill them all. What's a little carnage as long as it settles a score that nobody's old enough to remember?"

He followed Chiun through the house and then out the front entrance. There, awaiting them on the front lawn, were all the living descendants of Prince Wo. Remo scanned the rows of solemn faces, red, black, yellow, white and brown. No one was smiling.

"Who said big families had more fun?" Remo muttered.

Chiun walked down the steps, his silken robe swirling about him. He halted a few feet from the front rank of men and inclined his head slightly, the smallest of small bows.

"I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju," he said magisterially. "This is Remo, heir to the House of Sinanju. We are here."

A plump Oriental man dressed in a simple crimson robe stepped out of the front rank and bowed to Chiun. "I am Lee Wofan," he said solemnly. "The new prince in the long and illustrious line of the great Prince Wo. I have asked you here to discuss a matter of tribute."

"A tribute denied my predecessor, Master Pak," Chiun said.