Warren Murphy: Deadly Seeds

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"I don't understand it, Little Father."

"It belongs then in a vast category of human knowledge," said Chiun. "Which of the many things you do not understand are you talking about?"

"I don't understand this about Fielding. If someone wants to attack him, why have they been coming at us first? Why not go right after him? That's Mystery Number One."

Chiun waved his left hand as if it were beneath him even to think of Mystery Number One.

Remo waited for an answer but got none. Chiun sat instead in his saffron robe on a tufted pillow in the middle of the floor and gave Remo his fullest attention. It was Sunday and Chiun's soap operas had not been on the television that or the previous day, although he had watched them for the preceding two days and satisfied himself that Remo had fulfilled his promise to keep violence off the TV screen.

"And then there's Mystery Number Two. Maria died from radioactive poisoning. Smith's autopsy showed that. Fielding has a radioactive warehouse. But the grain samples I brought back show no signs of radioactivity. How can that be? That's Mystery Number Two."

With a wave of his right hand, Chiun consigned Mystery Number Two to the same scrap heap as Mystery Number One.

"How did Fielding disappear in the desert when I was looking for him?" started Remo.

"Wait," said Chiun. "Is this Mystery Number Three?"

"Yes," said Remo.

"All right. You may proceed. I just want to be sure to keep them all straight."

"Mystery Number Three," said Remo. "Fielding disappears in the desert. Where was he? Was he lying when he said he must have just come out from under the sunfilter just as I was going in? I think he was lying. Why would he lie when he knows I'm trying to protect him?"

Pfffit with both hands. So much for Mystery Number Three.

"Why so many deaths surrounding this project, for God's sake? Commodities men. Construction men. Who's behind all that? Who's trying to louse things up? That's Mystery Number Four?"

Remo paused waiting for Chiun's wave to dismiss Mystery Number Four but no wave came.

"Well?"

"Are you quite done?" asked Chiun.

"Quite."

"All right. Then here is Mystery Number Five. If a man sets out on a journey and travels thousands of miles to reach a place that is but a few miles away, he is doing what?"

"Going in the wrong direction," said Remo.

Chhin raised a finger. "Aaah, yes, but that is not the mystery. That is just a question. The mystery is why would a man who has done this and come to know it… why would that man go in the wrong direction again and again? That is the mystery."

"I assume all this blather has a point," Remo said.

"Yes. The point on your head between your ears. You are that man of Mystery Number Five. You travel and travel in the same direction always, searching for answers, and when you do not find them you keep traveling in the same direction."

"And?"

"And to unravel your mysteries-how many was it, four?-you must take another direction."

"Name one."

"Suppose your judgment of Mr. Fielding is wrong. Perhaps he is not victim but victimizer; perhaps not good but evil; perhaps he has seen what so many see about you-that you are a fool." Chiun chuckled. "After all, that is not one of the world's great mysteries."

"Okay. Say you're right. Why would he do this? If he is evil, what is he gaining by doing good?"

"And again I say do not jump from false opinions to empty conclusions without stopping to breathe. And sometimes to think."

"Are you saying that maybe Fielding has a scheme to do evil?"

"Aha. Sunrise comes at last, even after the darkest night."

"Why would he do that?"

"Of all the mysteries, the human heart is the most unfathomable. It is many billions of mysteries for which there are never solutions."

Remo plopped back on the couch and closed his eyes as if to puzzle that one through.

"How American. There is never a solution so now you will weary yourself trying to find a solution. Better you take up one of those things your people call sports, as when two fools try to hit each other with a ball that they hit with paddles. I watched it earlier today."

"They're not trying to hit each other. They're trying to hit the ball somewhere so that the other player can't hit it back."

"Why not just hit it over the fence?"

"That's not in the rules."

"The rules are stupid then," said Chiun. "And what does that pudgy boy with the long hair and the face of a blowfish mean by strutting around like a rooster after hitting a ball?"

"It's complicated," said Remo. He started to sit up to explain, then thought better of it. "It's tennis. I'll tell you about it next time."

"And another thing. Why do they love each other if they are competitors? It might be one thing for the men to love the pretty woman with the sturdy childbearing legs and the ears despoiled by rings. But to play love games with each other, that is sick."

"They're not in love with each other," said Remo. "That's how they keep score."

"That's right. Lie to me because I am Korean. I just heard on television that the one with the blowfish face had a love game. Would Howard Cosell lie to me?"

"Not if he knew what was good for him." Remo sank back onto the couch and began to ponder the Fielding mysteries. Let Chiun try to unravel the mysteries of tennis and its scoring. Each man has his own mysteries and sufficient unto the man… That was from the bible. He remembered the bible. It had been frequently referred to at the old orphanage although the nuns discouraged the children from reading it, under the assumption that a god who peeked into bathrooms, thus requiring them to bathe with undergarments on, would not be capable of defending himself against the mind of an inquisitive eight-year-old. Such was the nature of faith, and the stronger the faith the stronger the mistrust and misapprehension that it appeared to be based upon.

Was his faith in Fielding just that? Or was it just a suspicion of Chiun's?

Never mind. He would soon know. Fielding's Mojave unveiling was tomorrow and Remo and Chiun would be there. That might provide the answer to all mysteries.

There was another thing Remo remembered Chiun once saying about mysteries. Some cannot be solved. But all can be outlived.

Remo would see.

There were others making plans to go to the Mojave too.

In all of America, there were but eight Ninja experts who were willing to put their training into practice and kill. This, Johnny "Deuce" Deussio found out, after surveying the biggest martial arts schools in the country, weeding his way through overweight truckdrivers hoping to be discovered by television, executives trying to work out their aggressions, purse-snatchers looking for a new tool to aid them in their advancement to full-fledged muggers.

He found eight, all instructors, all Orientals. Their average age was forty-two but this did not bother Deussio because he had read all he could about Ninja and found that it differed from the other martial arts by its emphasis on stealth and deception. Karate, kungfu, judo, the rest, they took a man's strength and intensified it. Ninja was eclectic; it took pieces from all the disciplines, and just those pieces that did not require strength to be efficient.

Johnny Deuce looked at the eight men gathered in the study of his fortress mansion. They wore business suits and if they had had briefcases, they might have resembled a Japanese executive team out scouring the world to squander its nation's newfound wealth on racehorses and bad paintings.

Deussio knew the eight included Japanese and Chinese and at least one Korean, but as he looked at them sitting around him in the study, he felt ashamed to admit to himself that they did all look alike. Except for the one who had hazel eyes. His face was harder than the others; his eyes colder. It was the Korean and Deussio decided, this man has killed. The others? Maybe. At any rate, they were willing. But this one… he has blood on his hands and he likes it.