Warren Murphy - The Last Temple

"Be calm, Remo, we could do much worse than to remain here," said Chiun.

"What is this?" retorted Remo. "Are you getting soft in the head? Where is 'this land of little beauty'? Where are the palaces of yesteryear, remember?"

"They are gone," said Chiun, "gone with the sand and returned to the earth like the bones of Herod. As it should be. The surface beauty of this land has been destroyed but if Israel itself is destroyed, it might be best that the rest of the world be destroyed with it. Except Sinanju, of course."

"Of course," said Remo. "Quit fooling yourself. If Israel was destroyed, the world would probably turn the other way and keep going."

"Yes. Keep going to certain destruction," said Chiun, "for everything this land is, the world needs. Israel is based on the same beauty, love, and brotherhood as is Sinanju."

Remo laughed. The two places did have similarities all right. Both tended to look barren. Israel looked like a giant beachfront to Remo.

Sinanju like a mountain of crab grass littered with outhouses.

"What are you saying?" he said. "Love? Brotherhood? Sinanju? We're killers, Chiun. Sinanju is the spawning ground of the world's greatest assassins."

"Sinanju is an art before it is a place," said Chiun, his face grave. "Do you think I have just fought the atomic forces of the universe and won? I have not done this. Sinanju has done this. I am everything Sinanju is. Everything Sinanju is, is me. Israel holds the same power. It is up to the people here to tap that power."

Remo remembered the smell of sulphur and the ticking of the bomb. He remembered Delit's words and Chiun's actions. He remembered the nuclear device not exploding. But Sinanju a love nest? A monument to Brotherhood Week?

Chiun turned toward the Sinai and continued along the trail, speaking as if he had read Remo's mind.

"Yes, without our love, our brotherhood, and our home, Sinanju would just be another way of killing people. A toy to break bricks with. The world would be wise to pay heed to the lessons of the land with little visual beauty."

Remo looked out across the desert, experiencing its breathtaking view again. Just because every other landscape was a mine field and the town you passed through might not be there by the time you got back didn't mean that one could still not learn to love the place. Remo thought about Zhava and the flowers.

"There," came Chiun's voice, interrupting Remo's dreams. Remo turned and saw the Korean kneel by a rock, then leap to his feet and move quickly across the desert.

Remo ran past the other prayer-inscribed rocks until he came to the one Chiun had been by.

"Praise be to Herod the Wonderful," Chiun's voice drifted across the sand, "a fine, noble, honest man whose word even after centuries is as good as gold."

The rock had been inscribed with the letters, "C-H-I-U-N." Remo ran after the aged Korean.

"It is the sign I have been promised by the ancient chapters in the Book of Sinanju," Remo heard. "Come quickly into the desert, my son."

Remo plowed after Chiun's diminishing shape. "Where are we going?" Remo called into the wind.

"We are going to collect a debt," answered the Oriental's voice.

The dust rose in Remo's face from the speed of the Korean. Remo shut his eyes and kept running until he felt the grittiness disappear from his senses.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing with Chiun before a small cave, seemingly etched out of the sand and rock. Chiun smiled at him knowingly, then went inside. Remo followed, bending over to fit through the small opening.

"Ah," said Chiun, "you see?"

Inside the cave was a small room lit by a series of canals cut into the solid rock. Atop a thick rug was a skeleton wrapped in royal robes and wearing jewelry. Before the body were two heaps of gold. The walls were lined with silk.

"Friend of yours?" asked Remo.

"Herod is a man of his word," said Chiun.

"Was a man of his word," replied Remo. "This can't be Herod. He was buried in Herodonia." Remo looked at the mummified bones and the diamonds and ruby encrustations, then at the expression on Chiun's face. "Wasn't he?"

Chiun felt it unnecessary to reply. "We will take the gold that belongs to Sinanju," he said, instead. "Come." He handed Remo a silken bag.

"Why me?" said Remo. "You should pick up your own pay."

"This is the service that you owe," said Chiun. "You should be honored that I am allowing you to glimpse the innermost workings of Sinanju."

"Yeah, collecting money," said Remo, wondering how the hell he might get a silken bag filled with gold through customs. "Lucky me."

After the gold was secure, Chiun took the sack and walked to the mouth of the cave. As Remo joined him, the Oriental turned for a last look at the skeleton that had once been an emperor of one of the strongest empires that had ever existed.

"So it is. So it was. So it always shall be. Poor Herod the Maligned. The Book of Sinanju states, 'A human being is here today-in the grave tomorrow.' "

Remo turned to the reigning Master of Sinanju and remembered where he had heard that before. And from whose lips.

"That's funny, Chiun," he said. "You don't look Jewish."