Warren Murphy: Chained Reaction

"Okay," came the familiar lemony voice. "Go ahead."

"Smitty, is there an 'a' in undersecretary?"

"Remo, why are you bothering me with that? There are untold problems involving ..."

"Does it have an 'a' or doesn't it?"

"It does, now look, Remo, there's been some unusual activity concerning what might be a growing army and ..."

"It does have an 'a', right?"

"Yes. Now..."

"Goodbye," said Remo. "Last mission." He hung up and got out into the street where there was breathable air, and inhaled for the first time since before entering the little restaurant. Farther away from the beach, he selected a parked car, slipped in, casually jumped the wires, and drove to Delray down the coast where he parked it several blocks from a marina and walked onto a white two-deck fishing boat, which had been moored there for a month.

He was through. After more than a decade, he had done it. He was through with CURE.

The air was good again and the sea bobbed pleasantly for a man who saw his whole future ahead of him. And he knew what he was going to do with it.

Inside the boat, Remo saw sitting in a lotus

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position a thin wisp of a man with a wisp of a beard, a wisp of hair over his temples, wrapped in a light blue morning kimono, looking quietly into forever. He did not turn around.

"Little Father," Remo said. "I've quit Smith."

"It is a good morning," said the aged Oriental, and his long fingernails flicked from the robes. "At last. Smith was an insane emperor and there is nothing more dangerous or unbecoming to a great assassin than an insane emperor. Yet, lo, these many years I have not been heard as I warned of this. And why?"

"I don't want to know," said Remo who knew he was going to know whether he liked it or not, and also knew that not even an army could stop Chiun, Master of Sinanju, when he had a point to make. Especially one about Remo's ingratitude and unKorean-ness, or Smith's cheapness and insanity.

Chiun could not understand an organization that wanted to protect a Constitution, and the accumulated history of hundreds of Masters of Sinanju, working for ambitious princes, made it impossible for Chiun to understand the head of an organization who did not want to be emperor. He was shocked early on when Smith refused his offers to assassinate the current President and make Smith emperor in his place. It was this misunderstanding that enabled CURE to hire Chiun's services without his being a danger to the secrecy of CURE.

For, just as Smith would never know Sinanju, Chiun apparently could not know CURE. Only Remo understood most of both, like a man caught between universes, living in one, knowing another, and never finding a home,

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"Why have I not been listened to, you may ask," said Chiun. He turned slowly, his legs still pointing forward, but his torso spinning completely around toward Remo.

"I'm not asking," said Remo.

"I must answer. Because I have given grace and wisdom and kindness at so little cost."

"Smitty sends an American submarine every year with gold tribute. It risks World War Three by sneaking into North Korean waters to deliver gold to your village. More than Sinanju has ever had from anyone else," said the American part of Remo.

"Not more than Cyrus the Great," said Chiun, referring to the ancient Persian emperor who had given an entire country for services rendered. Ever since, the House of Sinanju had felt highly about working for Persians, even after Persia became Iran. That Iran had billions of dollars of oil did not make it any less attractive to Chiun.

"Too big a gift can be no gift at all," said the Sinanju part of Remo. For Cyrus had given a whole country but, taking command, the Master of Sinanju had learned governing but had lost some of his awesome physical skills. According to the history of Sinanju, he was almost killed before he could pass on to his successor the secrets that came, in diluted form, to be known as martial arts in the west.

Skill lasted forever and was the only true wealth. Nations and gold disappeared but skill passed on would be eternal. This Remo knew. Chiun had taught him as Chiun himself had been taught.

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"True," said Chiun, "but it was not the size but the nature of the gift. The gift I have given you is priceless and you have squandered it on an insane emperor. Yet have I ever complained ?"

"Always," said Remo.

"Never," said Chiun. "Yet I have borne ingratitude. I have forsaken my own kind, the heirs of Sinanju, for a white. Why have I done this?"

"Because the only one in your whole village who was capable of learning was a traitor to Sinanju and everybody else was no good and when you found me, you found someone who could be a Master of Sinanju, who could pass it on."

"I found a meat-eating pale piece of a pig's ear."

"You found someone who could accept Sinanju, a white man who could learn where a yellow man couldn't. White. White," said Remo.

"Racism," said Chiun angrily. "Blatant racism. And racism is most obnoxious from an inferior race."

"You needed a white man, Chiun," said Remo. "Needed."

"I have cast pearls before a swine," said Chiun. "And swine now claims I needed to throw the pearls away. I have disgraced my House. Lo, there is nothing worse that I can do, nothing worse that can happen."

"I've found another way to make a living, Little Father," said Remo.

And for the first time, Remo saw, on the yellow parchment of the face that had always

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maintained control as normally as most lungs breathed, a reddish shock fill the cheeks.

And Remo knew he had done wrong. Eeally wrong.

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CHAPTER THREE

Colonel Wendell Bleech got his orders at 4:35 A.M. from the chief himself. They came in the form of a question.

Could he, at this time, pull off one of the initial missions? It was important, because within a short period, the chief wanted to show a fully trained product.

"Can do, sir," said Bleech. He hoisted his pumpkin body up in the bed and made a note of the time the call came in.

"Colonel, it is imperative that you not fail. If you are not ready yet, I'd rather wait."

"We are ready now, sir. Ahead of time." There was a long pause. Bleech waited with the pencil poised over the pad. He heard the even step of his personal guard outside his barracks door. His room was bare as a cell, with only a hard bed, one window, and a trunk for his clothes. Other than the toaster and the refrigerator to keep his English muffins at forty-three-degree temperature and the white enameled bread box holding twenty-two different kinds of jam, the room was without amenities. It was more stark even than his troopers' quarters.

If Bleech needed justification for his harsh dis-

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cipline, and in his own mind he did not, this room would have sufficed. But he had all the justification he needed in his mission itself. Every time he looked at the two lone pictures in his room beneath the stars and bars of the Confederacy, the old South defeated in the first Civil War, he knew he would do anything for his mission. It was not just another set of orders to him; it was a life's calling. It had led him from the regular army to this special unit, from which there was no recall.

"Colonel, it would be bad if we could not move now, but it would be even worse if we moved and failed."

"We will not fail."

"Can you move tomorrow?"

"Yes," said Bleech.

"Against a city that can be closed off from every exit?"

"Norfolk, Virginia?" guessed Bleech.

"Yes. With the naval base there and lots and lots of hidden protection."

"We can do it."

"Enthusiasm has its limits, Colonel."

"Sir, my enthusiasm ends where my reality begins. I would take this unit anywhere. They're mine and they're good and they aren't messed up with a lot of mollycoddling regular army regulations'. This is a fighting unit, sir."