Warren Murphy - Assassins Play Off

And the crowd lifted its voices.

"Go home, Chiun. Nuihc is our new Master. Send the ancient one home."

And in the dust, Remo heard the words and knew what they meant, and he wanted to cry out, "Chiun, save yourself, these people aren't worth your spit," but he couldn't say it because he could not talk.

Remo heard the voices and then he heard another voice, a voice he had known for so many years, a voice that had brought him wisdom and had taught him at every step, but now it was a different voice, because all at once it seemed old and tired, and the voice said, "All right. I will go home."

It was Chiun but it didn't sound like Chiun's voice anymore. Chiun's real voice was different. It was strong. Once when he had been dying of burns, Remo had heard Chiun's voice and it had been strong in his head and it had said, "Remo, I will not let you die. I am going to make you hurt, Remo, but you will live because you are supposed to live."

And another time when Remo had been poisoned, through the mists he had heard the voice of Chiun, saying: "Live, Remo, live. That is all I teach you, to live. You cannot die, you cannot grow weak, you cannot grow old unless your mind lets you do it. Your mind is greater than all your strength, more powerful than all your muscles. Listen to your mind, Remo, it is saying to you: live."

That was Chiun's voice, and this old man's voice that had said it was going to allow itself to die, that wasn't Chiun's voice, Remo told himself. It was an impostor's voice, because Chiun would not die and Remo would tell him that. Remo would tell him, Chiun, you must live. But to tell him that he had to be able to move.

His right arm was flung out in front of him. He forced himself, through the pain, to feel the dust under his fingertips. He moved his index finger. He felt the dust and dirt slide up under his fingernail. Yes, Chiun, see, I am alive, he thought, and I am alive because my mind says live, and I remember it, even if you don't, and then Remo made his right middle ringer move.

His left hand was under his head. The pain burned his shoulder like a white-hot poker as he turned his hand a fraction of an inch under his head. But didn't you always tell me, Chiun, that pain is the price one pays to stay alive. Pain belongs to the living. Only the dead never hurt.

He could hear their voices again, Nuihc's loud and triumphant, demanding no delay, demanding that Chiun march now down to the sea and out into the bay until the waters covered him and he went home to his ancestors. And he heard Chiun's voice, soft and sad and weak, the voice of a man who has suffered a great loss, and he was saying he could not go home until he had made his peace with his ancestors.

Remo felt the knot of muscles in his right thigh and he could feel the separate tears in them, the tear that had first been opened by Lynette Bardwell and then reopened by Nuihc who had, in delivering the blow, done some new damage of his own.

Remo screwed his eyes tightly closed. He could feel the muscles, sense their existence, and pressing his lips together so he did not scream, he tensed the muscles and the pain was worse than any pain he had ever felt, but that's it, Chiun, isn't it, pain tells you you're alive.

He heard another voice now, it must have been from the Korean official who stood with Chiun and Nuihc because Remo did not recognize it. The voice said that Chiun could have a few minutes before he would go home and the American would be dispatched any way Nuihc decided, but his body would be sent to the American embassy as a protest against spies infiltrating the glorious People's Democratic Republic of North Korea.

His left leg still worked, Remo found, flexing the muscles from thigh to calf. And the most important muscle of all worked. His mind. His mind was the master of the muscles, the intellect the ruler of the flesh, and he let them talk, he let them babble on, and he knew what he would do. He licked his lips to get the dust off them and he tasted the dirt on his tongue and it made him angry at himself for failing, angry at Chiun for surrendering, angry at Nuihc for always coming at them.

But mostly angry at himself.

He heard the voices talk on but he was not listening any more, he was speaking himself, speaking without sound, but speaking in his mind to his muscles and they were hearing him because they moved.

The crowd stilled, and there was a tiny babble of voices, and over them came Nuihc's voice issuing his final ultimatum to Chiun: "You have five minutes, old man."

And then there was another voice Remo heard and he was surprised because it was his voice. He heard it say, loudly, as if he was not even in pain, and he thanked the mind for making the body work, and the voice said:

"Not yet, dog meat."

And there was a scream from the villagers as they all turned and saw Remo standing again. His black uniform was coated with the dust of the street, but he was standing, and the villagers could not believe it, but he was standing, staring at Nuihc and he was smiling.

When Nuihc turned again to face Remo, he could not disguise the look on his face, a look of shock and terror.

He stood there, death-still, alongside Chiun and the premier. Remo, hurting in every muscle, in every tendon and fiber and sinew, made the only move he had left.

He charged.

Perhaps surprise or shock might stop Nuihc from moving fast enough, and while Remo could not walk to him, his charge might get him to Nuihc before Remo fell down again. And if he could fall with Nuihc under him, then perhaps. Just perhaps.

Remo was lunging forward now, his body moving lower and lower toward the earth, only the will of his forward motion preventing him from falling onto his face.

Three yards to go.

But Nuihc was in control again. He stood his ground ready to deal the final blow to Remo, and Remo saw it. When he was only a yard away, he let his body flip out to the right, and as he fell onto his damaged right shoulder he used all the power that was left in his body and concentrated it on his undamaged left leg and drove his bare left foot into the solar plexus of Nuihc. He felt the toe go in, deep, but he did not feel the crunch of bone, and he knew he had missed the sternum, he had hurt Nuihc but the blow was not fatal, and that was all Remo had left. As Remo lay on the ground, he looked up toward Chiun, in supplication, as if asking for forgiveness, and then he heard a scream and Nuihc's eyes bulged forward and he reached down with his hands to grasp his abdomen, but his hands never got there because Nuihc was pitching forward onto the ground.

He hit open mouth first and lay there, in a kneeling position, his eyes open, staring in death at the dirt of the street, as if it were the thing that interested him most in life and in death.

Remo looked at him carefully and realized that Nuihc was dead, and he did not know why, and he passed out because he didn't care.

Unconscious, Remo did not hear Chiun proclaim that Remo's courage was worth more than all Nuihc's-skill and that Nuihc had not died of the blow but had died of fear and that now the villagers would know that the Master had selected wisely in choosing Remo.

And Remo did not hear the villagers proclaim undying allegiance to Chiun, and praise Remo for having the heart of a Korean lion in a white man's skin.

He did not hear the villagers drag off the body of Nuihc to cast it into the bay to feed the crabs, and he did not hear Chiun order the premier to have his soldiers carry Remo gently back to Chiun's palace, and he did not heard the premier promise that he would never again involve himself in Sinanju's internal matters, and that there would be an immediate end to the graft visited upon the tribute by the thieving governor.

Remo woke for just a fraction of an instant as he was being lifted by the soldiers, and in that fraction of an instant he heard Chiun's voice, strong again and demanding, order "gently," and before his eyes closed again, he saw that the fingernail of Chiun's left index finger was stained red.