Warren Murphy: Assassins Play Off

He walked back, jauntily, toward Kim Il Sung. His mind was clicking and he knew the answer.

He spoke to the premier, and then Sung and his entourage followed Nuihc back to the house.

Again Nuihc pounded on the door. Again the woman answered: "Go away, I told you."

"The premier is here," said Nuihc, raising his voice to be sure both Chiun and the villagers heard.

There was a pause.

The woman's voice again.

"Tell him he is in the wrong place. The nearest brothel is in Pyongyang."

Nuihc spoke out crisply. "Tell the old man that unless he and the imperialist white swine come out, the premier will order this house destroyed by explosion for being what it is: a spy's den giving comfort to an enemy of the state." He turned and smiled at Sung.

Another pause. Longer this time.

Finally the woman's voice again: "Return to the village square. The Master will meet you there."

"Tell him to hurry," ordered Nuihc. "We do not have time to waste on the doddering of the ancient." He turned and walked alongside the premier, back the thirty yards to the village square, where they waited by the premier's Cadillac. Now they were not alone. The people of Sinanju, who had been watching and listening from inside their homes and shops, now stepped out onto the old wooden sidewalks and, as the premier and Nuihc passed, they cheered.

Inside his home, Chiun had heard Nuihc's final ultimatum and now he heard the cheers and knew what they were for. He stared out toward the bay. After all these years, after all his service, after all the centuries of tradition, it had come to this: a Master of Sinanju, humiliated in his own village by one of his own family, with the village citizens cheering the intruder.

How pleasant it would be to do what should be done. To step out into the square and to reduce Nuihc to the pile of flesh and bone chip that he should be. But the centuries of tradition that had given him pride also gave Chiun responsibility. He was disgraced now before the villagers, but he would be disgraced in his own eyes if he should strike Nuihc.

The younger man knew that, and the knowledge of his freedom from attack had emboldened his tongue.

It should have been Remo, Chiun knew. It was for Remo to meet this challenge, to destroy Nuihc for once and all. So it had been written in the books ages before. But Remo lay asleep, his muscles unable to work, more helpless than a child.

And because neither Remo nor Chiun could raise an arm against Nuihc, the title of Master of Sinanju was going to pass, for the first time in unremembered centuries, into the hands of one who would not wear it with pride and honor.

Chiun rose from his mat and went into the main living section of the house and he lit a candle. From a chest, he took a long white robe, the robe of innocence, and a black fighting uniform. He fingered the black uniform fondly, then dropped it atop the chest. He would wear the white robe, the color of the unspoiled. The color of the chicken.

He donned the robe quickly then kneeled before the candle and prayed to his ancestors. In that moment was crystallized all the training of Sinanju, because its root was: to survive.

And Chiun had made his decision. He would give up the title of Master. He would trade it for Remo's life. And then one day, when Remo was well, there might be a chance for Remo to reclaim that title.

It would do Chiun no good. He would, by that time, have been marked in history as a disgrace, the first Master ever forced to give up his title. But at least the title might one day be wrested from Nuihc, and that was some small measure of consolation.

Chiun reached forward a delicate long-nailed finger and extinguished the candle flame by squeezing the wick between thumb and index finger. He rose to his feet in one fluid movement that left his robe still and unswirling.

"Master?" said the girl, appearing next to him,

"Yes?" said Chiun.

"Must you go?"

"I am the Master. I cannot run."

"But they do not want you. They want the American. Give him up."

"I am sorry, child," said Chiun. "But he is my son."

The woman shook her head. "He is white, Master."

"And he is more my son than any yellow man. He shares not my blood but he shares my heart and my mind and my soul. I cannot give him up." And Chiun touched the girl lightly on her cheek and walked toward the front door.

In the square, the villagers crowded near the car where Nuihc and the premier stood. The motorcycle soldiers kept them at a respectful distance, but their voices spoke out clearly.

"The Master is too old."

"He betrayed us by giving the secrets to the white man."

"Nuihc will restore the honor of Sinanju."

Some felt they should say that Chiun's labors had always supported the village, that it was not given to mere villagers to know what was on the Master's mind, and that the poor did not starve and the elderly were not discarded and the babies were not drowned, sent home to the sea, anymore because of Chiun's efforts. But they did not say these things because it seemed no one wished to hear them, and instead all wished to heap praise upon Nuihc who preened himself and soaked up the adulation as he stood by the premier.

"Where is he?" asked Kim Il Sung of Nuihc.

His answer did not come from Nuihc, The crowd was silent, its humming babble stopped in midword. All eyes turned toward Chiun's home.

Coming down the street slowly, down the thirty yards toward the cars and the crowd and his tormentor, came Chiun, his face impassive, his steps slow but light, his hands folded within each other inside the voluminous sleeves of his traditional white robe.

"Where is the American?" one man called.

"The false Master still protects the westerner," said another in outrage.

"Traitor," screamed another man.

And then the voices rose above the tiny square, "Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!"

Back inside Chiun's house, the young woman who was his servant heard the catcalls and the hoots and her eyes watered with tears. How could they? How did they dare to do such a thing to the Master? And finally she realized the reason. It was not the Master they hated, but the white American. For the white American, the Master was doing this.

It was not fair. The Master's life destroyed because of the American.

The American would not escape the responsibility for his being. She went to the living room and from a pearl-encrusted scabbard withdrew a highly polished knife with a long, curved blade.

Holding it behind her, she went into the room where Remo slept. His eyes were still closed. She knelt down beside the sleeping mat. She raised her eyes to the heavens and offered up a prayer to her ancestors, to understand what she was doing.

She looked down on the hated white man. "Lift the knife up and drive it into his heart," a small voice whispered insistently inside her.

The white man's eyes opened. He smiled at her.

"Hi, sweetheart, where's Chiun?" he said.

She lifted the knife up over her head and willed herself to drive it down into Remo's chest, but then she let it drop from her hands and buried her face against Remo's chest, weeping.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Where is the swine American?" Nuihc's voice was a sneer as he looked across the two feet of space separating him from Chiun.

Chiun ignored him. To the premier, he said: "I see you have chosen a side."

The premier shrugged.

"How like a creature from Pyongyang," said Chiun. "To cast his lot with a trollop."

One of the motorcycle soldiers stepped forward. He raised his pistol over his head to club Chiun for his insult. Chiun did not move. The pistol poised and Kim Il Sung barked: "Cease."

The soldier let his hand down slowly, then with a look of hatred at Chiun he backed away.