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"Odd," he mused. "They go to Yuma then disappear. Now the Master of Sinanju
has returned but without Remo."
What could have happened?
A chill washed over Harold Smith as he exited the credit-card files. Had Remo
died? Was it possible?
Smith brought up Chiun's credit-card records again. There were incidental
charges. Chiun had eaten at a Korean restaurant in midtown Manhattan whose
name seemed to be the Soot Bull, but otherwise he hadn't remained in New York
long. About three hours.
What business had Chiun in Manhattan? Smith wondered.
He was still wondering about that and trying to remain awake by drinking
successive cups of black coffee heavily sugared for the energy he knew he
would need to get through a full workday on no sleep when his secretary
brought a Federal Express package to him.
"This just came, Dr. Smith."
"Thank you," Smith said, accepting the package.
It was a standard cardboard mailer the Federal Express people insisted upon
calling letter size. Smith saw that the return address was in Quincy,
Massachusetts, and the name of the sender was written in a familiar slashing
approximation of English that suggested a Far Eastern calligrapher.
Chiun.
Zipping open the cardboard zipper seal, Smith extracted a single sheet of
parchment. The note was written in the stylized English calligraphy the Master
of Sinanju used.
Gracious Emperor,
Long, O long has the House served the Rome of the far west today. Long might
it continue to serve. But the gods have decreed otherwise. We must submit to
the will of the gods, even if we do not believe in the same gods. For if one
sees sufficient summers, one will learn the bitter lesson that I have come to
accept. It is too painful to speak of here, and so I will not spoil the acute
ceremony of our parting. Farewell, O Smith. May your days be without number.
P.S. The enclosed tablet is yours. If the pain of loss proves unendurable,
perhaps you will find comfort in its solace.
Harold Smith looked at the black ink letters as they swam before his bleary
eyes.
The Master of Sinanju was abandoning America. There was no other
interpretation possible.
But what was meant by the enclosed tablet? Smith looked into the cardboard
mailer and found wrapped in pearly silk the coffin-shaped poison pill that
Remo had taken from him months before, vowing not to return it until Smith had
located Remo's parents, living or dead.
Smith returned it to the watch pocket of his gray vest and leaned back in his
cracked leather chair, his face drained of all color and expression. He sat
that way for a very long time.
It struck Harold Smith as he sipped his sixth cup of hot coffee for the
morning. The coffee cup dropped from his shocked fingers to spill its scalding
contents all over his gray lap. His gray eyes went round and grim behind the
glass shields of his rimless glasses. His gray skin paled to a color that
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could only be called scraped bone.
Harold Smith knew the answer to the question in his mind even as he called up
the AP news briefs.
The uproar in the General Assembly of the United Nations had occurred at
approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. Less than an hour after Chiun had landed
in LaGuardia. He had eaten at the Soot Bull about an hour later. Then he had
departed for Boston.
Smith knew with absolute certainty who had addressed the General Assembly in
that time frame. He also had an excellent idea of what had thrown the body
into chaos. Why the delegates had rushed to their home capitals. Smith also
had a distinct suspicion about what these delegates were discussing at this
very minute with their leaders.
Harold Smith knew all this because there was only one possible thing the
Master of Sinanju could have told the General Assembly that accounted for
everything that had followed.
No one had declared war.
Instead, the House of Sinanju had offered its services to the highest bidder
in the swiftest, most breathtakingly dramatic fashion possible. And in
capitals the world over, treasures were being audited, offers calculated and
the greatest bidding war in human history was about to begin.
A war for control of the deadliest assassin to ply his trade in this century.
A war in which there could be but one winner and the price for losing was
absolute and final.
A war the United States could not afford to lose.
The Master of Sinanju sat in the meditation tower of the castle bestowed upon
him by the grateful Emperor of America. Sixteen were the chambers, and each
chamber boasted its own kitchen and bathing room, as well as two bedrooms.
As he inscribed the words on a parchment scroll set on the hardwood floor and
held flat with semiprecious stones set at each of the four corners, Chiun
wondered if it would appear to future generations that Chiun, who was Master
for the majority of what the West called the twentieth century but was
actually the fiftieth Western culture having flourished late was a shameless
braggart.
Chiun didn't wish to appear to boast to his descendants. Perhaps it would be
better to strike the description of the chambers. Sixteen chambers was
sufficient to convey to future Masters, especially considering that the land
known to Koreans as Mi-Guk was unlikely to prosper much beyond this century.
Looking at the scroll with its fresh-inked pre-Hangul characters, the Master
of Sinanju weighed the consequences of striking these offending lines. It
would be messy. He didn't wish to be called Chiun the Messy Scribe.
On reflection, he let them stand. It would be better to move Castle Sinanju,
block by block, to the village of Sinanju, where his descendants could examine
it for themselves. This way no one could deny the generosity of America the
Forgotten and by implication understand that Chiun the Neat was a superb
negotiator.
Now that he was leaving America forever, there was no point in abandoning such
a fine building merely because its inhabitants had offended him so greatly.
When the telephone rang later in the day, the Master of Sinanju was struggling
over the proper phrasing of his reasons for abandoning the client who had paid
the House a thousandfold greater gold than any client in Korean history. Chiun
hesitated.
It might be a new suitor to the House.
On the other hand, it might also be Emperor Smith, who was doubtless gnashing
his teeth, rending his garments and bewailing his anguish over having lost the
services of Sinanju.
Goose quill poised, he decided to allow the instrument to ring. And so it
rang. And rang and rang.
After some forty unbroken rings, it finally went silent. Only to immediately
start up again.
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Chiun nodded. Emperor Smith. Only he would punish the ears so with his
stubborn refusal to accept the harsh truth that had descended so crushingly
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