Warren Murphy: Skin Deep

"Long time to wait for a ride home," Remo admitted.

"It was worse than that. For despite their warm welcome at the Chinese court, Hun Tup knew the Emperor Kublai Khan to be a deceitful, lying thief— a man of no honor and in whom the truth was not to be found."

"What'd he do that was so terrible?"

"Him? Nothing. But his ancestor, Genghis Khan, once used the services of a previous Master of Sinanju, and weighted his tribute chest with bricks at the bottom to lessen the payment. The descendants of such a man are not to be trusted," Chiun said with an air of injured dignity. "Therefore, Hun Tup stole away in the night with his heavy tribute, before the Chinese emperor could take it and deprive the village of Sinanju of its lifeblood."

"Hun Tup sounds pretty paranoid," Remo said.

"He was correct," Chiun snapped. "Kublai Khan's soldiers followed him, as he had feared, seeking to rob the Master of his riches. Deep in the hills of China, they ambushed him. Hun Tup sent them all into the Void, of course, but he himself was left with wounds which the fetid Chinese air, combined with the Master's weakness from the long journey, did nothing to cure.

"At last he found himself near a swamp, weary and with the knowledge of death close to his heart. He dropped the chest of tribute he had carried on his back for many days, certain that he would never live to see again his beloved shores of Sinanju."

"What happened?" Remo asked, getting caught up in the story. "Did he die?"

"Nearly. He was found by a tribe of lepers who had been driven out of their communities and forced to live near the swamp. The lepers nursed him back to health, protected him and, when he was well, sent an escort of two of their number to carry the tribute back to Sinanju.

"Once back in his village, Hun Tup, who was in his tenth decade, charged his successor to move the lepers to a dry and comfortable place, away from the filth and stink of the Chinese swamp. Before he died in his one hundred and fourteenth year, after the lepers had all migrated to the island of Molokai in Hawaii, he decreed that all subsequent Masters were forbidden to kill the Molokai lepers, for by their kindness was the village of Sinanju spared a terrible fate."

Remo smiled. "Nice, Chiun," he said. "Really."

The old man flushed with pride. "There has been much beautiful Ung poetry written about Hun Tup the Grateful." Closing his eyes, Chiun swayed as he chanted Korean verses in a tuneless singsong.

"The only thing is, this is Florida. What are the Molokai lepers doing here?"

Chiun shrugged. "One cannot know the answers to all things at once. The boy will tell his chief about us. We will be brought to their village. Watch and listen. All will be made clear in time."

"Wish they'd hurry up," Remo said, but Chiun was chanting again. Remo looked around at the tropical isle. Except for the quiet menace of the birds, it was as close to heaven as he'd ever seen. White and purple orchids, beaded with droplets of water from the frequent rains, hung delicately near banana trees with their pendulous burdens of fruit, and the ground was covered with the fragrant boughs of...

Boughs? He looked again. The entire forest floor seemed to be strewn with broken twigs and leafy branches. He swept a small area clear. Beneath the sand was something hard and smooth... and black.

"Tar," he whispered. "Chiun, come look at this." The old Oriental stopped his singing and followed Remo into the forest. "This is macadam," Remo said, "it's a road."

A few birds came along, their talons clack-clacking against the surface. "What I can't understand is, why would anyone build a road that leads directly into the ocean?"

Chiun was looking up, toward the thick upper growth of leaves on the trees. Too thick, Remo thought.

"Notice the pattern of the branches at the tops of the trees," Chiun said.

Remo did. The configuration of the leaves was somehow out of place, the branches too thick. Then he saw it. A gleaming stump of white tree trunk, very high up, nearly— but not quite— connecting with the branches overhead. He widened his pupils to see farther into the dense forest. There were more trees in the same odd condition, their tops sawn off twenty feet above ground. All of the trees lining the artfully concealed road had been cut.

Picking up a rock, Remo aimed it at a high branch running directly across the roadway beneath. The rock struck. The branch fell to the road with a crash. Remo walked over to the felled branch to examine it. Its base, like the tops of the trees along the roadway, had been cut cleanly. Overhead, he saw the patch of sky the branch had obscured when in place.

In place. That was it. "These trees are here for camouflage," he said.

"Exactly," Chiun agreed. "Someone worked very carefully to conceal this road."

"It's no road, Chiun." Remo swished away another section of leaves and twigs of covering the sticky pavement. "This is an airstrip. If my guess is right, the missing F-24 is somewhere right on this island."

He was exploring deeper into the forest when the dim shape of a human figure came into view out of the jungle mist. Remo stood still, nearly mesmerized by the sensual, rhythmic walk of the girl. She was graceful and slim and moved with an inner stillness and dignity rare in young women. Her black waist-length hair swayed behind her as she walked, her legs as strong and muscled as the flanks of a jungle animal.

Now brace yourself, Remo thought, anticipating the wasted face that would inevitably go with the perfect body.

He blinked when he saw it. The Polynesian face was flawless. Her complexion was creamy and sun-bronzed, setting off two wing-shaped dark eyes that twinkled with intelligence above the high, angular planes of her cheekbones. Below them rested a straight nose with slightly flaring nostrils and a full-lipped mouth naturally tinted the pink-red of good health.

"I am Ana," the girl said, warmly but not smiling. She turned to Chiun and bowed her head respectfully. "If you will follow me, Master, I will take you to our village."

Chiun watched her but did not speak. She turned and retraced her path through the forest. As the three of them walked noiselessly over the underbrush, Remo took another look at the concealed and apparently new macadam surface.

"Excuse me," he said, The girl stopped. "Do you know when that airstrip was built? And who built it?"

The girl's eyes seemed to glaze. She spoke softly. "No one," she said enigmatically. "No airstrip. No airplanes."

"Yes, there is. I saw it," Remo persisted. "Right over there..."

"No airstrip," Ana repeated, and moved on.

Remo sighed and followed her. She led them through a jungle paradise of lush flowering greenery and spills of cascading water. Above, against the clear blue sky, magnificent parrots and cockatoos screeched and soared, showing off rainbows of iridescent color.

"What is that noise?" Chiun asked. Remo listened. A muted roar was coming from the east.

"It is the sound from the place of perfection," Ana said. "Would you like to see it?"

Chiun nodded. The girl veered away from the small path and took them uphill through some dense growth as the noise grew louder. When at last they emerged, they were a few hundred feet from a breathtaking waterfall. The cliff where it orginated was of tremendous height, seeming to jut straight out of the sky, and the torrent of water spilling over it crashed like thunder onto huge boulders below.

"The fall is nearly two hundred feet," the girl said.

Chiun smiled. "Beautiful," he said.

The girl's voluptuous lips turned upward at pleasing the old Oriental. "Yes," she said. "Come. My brother, Timu, is waiting in the valley. He is the head of our village."

She escorted them back onto the narrow path, and they walked downhill until they could see the thatched roofs and smoking fires from a small settlement ahead, in a clearing past the last stand of trees.