Assassins Play Off td-20 Read online

  Assassins Play Off

  ( The Destroyer - 20 )

  Warren Murphy

  Richard Sapir

  For centuries, the ancient House of Sinanju is recognized as the center of learning for all the martial arts. From the ancestral nucleus of Oriental power and prestige have come the world's deadliest assassins and killers, also man's greatest protectors and warriors. To become a Master of Sinanju, however, is to totally perfect one's mental, spiritual, and physical powers. Very few mortals possess even a fraction of the necessary skills. Mere muscle or brains do not matter. Rarer still have been the men who dare to even approach the lowest steps of this shrine to violence and sudden death at Sinanju. The masters of Sinanju are the sun source and essence of the martial arts since prehistory. Recent upstart fighting techniques such as Kung Fu, Karate, Ninja, Aikido are but minor variations in the deadly armament of a Master. Only foreplay to the Grand Battle. And now, for the first time, a Westerner, a white man, Remo Williams, is defending the Holy Place against his relentless archenemy, Nuihc. Not since the Mongol invasions and the barbaric Chinese warlords has the land trembled in such anticipation. The scenario begins in New Jersey. The die is cast in a U.S. government submarine. Now Chiun and the Premier of Korea will witness the Grand Battle. And Remo Williams - the Destroyer - is being allowed but one blow. One split-second opportunity to punch, slash, chop, smash or kick . . . The ghosts of a thousand warriors dance in the dust as the two men face each other. And Chiun knows.

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  * Title : #020 : ASSASSINS PLAY-OFF *

  * Series : The Destroyer *

  * Author(s) : Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir *

  * Location : Gillian Archives *

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  CHAPTER ONE

  He who plays with the sword shall succumb to him who works with the willow branch. —HOUSE OF SINANJU.

  He had paid $8,000, all that was in his family's savings account, and had promised $12,000 more in three years of monthly installments to be sitting in the drafty main room of this Scottish castle in the drizzly, bitter chill autumn of the highlands, his knuckles on the floor, his weight on his knees in a position of respect.

  They had remodeled the room, they said. A new wooden floor, polished to a high gloss. New rice-paper tapestries with the symbols of Ninja—the night fighters—of Atemi, the fist methods; of Kung Sool, the archery; of Hsing-i, the boxing; and many others he did not recognize.

  But they had not taken away the draft from Kildonan Castle, north of Dundee and south of Aberdeen, inland from the Firth of Tay. Only the Scots, thought William Ashley, could create a structure that was drafty without being ventilated.

  And even the Koreans couldn't overcome it.

  The large room smelled of pungent sweat mixed with fear and perhaps it was the chill that made Ashley's knees ache and his back feel as if someone were tightening a garrote on his spinal column. Not since he was a novice in the little commercial karate dojo in Rye, New York, had Ashley felt the pain in the position of respect, knees on floor, hands extended outward so that you rested on both feet and hands. It was in that little dojo after work that he learned respect for himself in the conquest of his body. Learned to control his fears and his passions, learned that it was not the yellow belt or the green belt or the brown belt or even the highest—or what he thought was the highest then—the black belt, that was important; no, what was important was what he became with each step taken toward a perfection far off in the distance.

  And it was precisely this striving for perfection that had brought Ashley to the highlands with his family's savings and his three-week annual vacation.

  He had initially thought that perfection was an unattainable goal, a thought that kept men rising and improving, a goal that when you were closest you realized was farther away. A place and a thing beyond where you would ever be. It was a direction, rather than a destination.

  Which is what he had said in the Felt Forum of Madison Square Garden last month. Which was why he was here, $8,000 poorer and telling himself, like all those who really understand the martial arts, that body pain must eventually diminish.

  He had made the remark about perfection being unattainable to a Korean who had come to the annual martial arts exhibit and who had commented somewhat complimentarily on Ashley's performance.

  "Almost perfect," said the Korean, who wore a dark business suit with white starched shirt and a red tie. He was young but somewhat fleshy around the jowls.

  "Then I am happy," said Ashley, "because no one is perfect."

  "Not so," said the Korean. "There is perfection."

  "In the mind," said Ashley.

  "No. Here on earth. Perfection you can touch."

  "What school are you with?" asked Ashley, who himself was karate but knew of kung fu, aikido, ninja, and many other fighting methods of the body.

  "Perhaps all schools," said the Korean. Ashley looked at the man more closely. He could not be older than his thirties, and such arrogance in one so young surely meant ignorance rather than competence. He reminded himself that not all Orientals knew the martial arts any more than all Americans knew rocketry. The man had obviously come to the Felt Forum to see what the martial arts were about and just as obviously was a windbag. There were Orientals who talked through their hat, too.

  The Korean smiled.

  "You doubt me, don't you, William Ashley?" he said.

  "How do you know my name?"

  "Do you think your name is a secret?"

  "No, but I am surprised that you know me."

  "William Ashley, thirty-eight, computer programmer for Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York. And you think because you are a grain of sand on the beach, I should not be able to tell you from any other grain of sand on the beach, and you are surprised that I know you."

  "Very," said Ashley who knew what to do in situations like this. He was supposed to call Folcroft Sanitarium and report it because the information he worked with at the sanitarium was top security. The sanitarium walls were just a cover. He, along with two other National Security Agency programmers, had been sent there seven years before, and so secret was their work that no one man could tell, even if he were forced to, about the scope and nature of any project he worked on.

  But something about this Korean made Ashley hesitate.

  "If you are surprised, you have a very poor memory."

  Bill Ashley slapped his thigh and laughed.

  "Of course. I remember. Last year. Just before Christmas. You had been in some sort of accident, with crude oil, I think, and had suffered skin burn. Severe, if I remember. You came to our dojo and you were recuperating and our sensei said you were a great master. Your name was, don't tell me, I remember, I remember, I remember…"

  "Winch."

  "Right. Winch," said Ashley. "How do you do, sir. It is an honor to meet you again. Oh, I'm sorry." Ashley put his hand down. He remembered the man did not shake hands.

  Together then, they watched an exhibition of monkey fighting, a peculiar form in which much leverage was claimed, but Winch pointed out to Ashley that there was no leverage at all, just the illusion of power.

  When one of the fighters knocked the other off the mat, Ashley said that looked like plenty of leverage to him.

  "Only because they were both monkey style, balancing on a single foot, instead of thrusting from that foot. Anyone with feet wide apart who got close so that he could see the little lines on the teeth could, with a push, make any monkey fighter look like a fool."

  "I believe it because you say it, but they are both fifth dan black belts."

  "You do not believe
it, but you will," Winch said and rose from his seat. In a language Ashley assumed was Korean, Winch spoke to several of the monkey fighting masters who looked shocked, then angry.

  "Put on your gi," said Winch. "You will make the monkey boxer look like a fool."

  "But they are all very famous here in the New York area," said Ashley.

  "I have no doubt. Many people are famous here. Just keep your feet wide apart and get very close and push."

  "Perhaps a more forceful attack?" said Ashley.

  "A push," said Winch.

  "What did you tell them?" asked Ashley, nodding past Winch toward the black belt experts who were staring at him.

  "What I told you. That you will make any monkey boxer look like a fool and that they should be ashamed that true Koreans would lend their presence to such silliness."

  "Oh, no. You didn't," gasped Ashley.

  "Go," said Winch.

  "What about humility?"

  "What about truth? Go. You will shame that monkey boxer if you do as I say. Do not box. Do not attack with feet or slashing or chopping blows. Get close and push. You will see."

  When Ashley, in his two piece gi, entered the ring, he heard snickers from the black belts. He saw several smile. The monkey boxer chosen to take care of Ashley smiled. He was about the same age as Ashley, but his body and even his skin was harder, more alive, for he had been training since he was a child. Ashley had started when he was twenty-eight.

  Ashley bowed his respect before the match, but the monkey boxer, apparently angered by Winch's derision, stood rocklike, unmoving, ungiving of respect. A low murmur went through the crowd around the ring. This was not to be done. This was twice that tradition had been broken. First with the open insult from Winch, and then with the monkey boxer's failure to honor his opponent.

  It was then that Ashley, looking at his opponent's face, knew the man meant to kill him. It was a smell as much as anything, his own body emitting something that told him he held his own life in his hands and he did not want it there.

  Ashley desperately wanted to assume some known form of defensive position he had learned, but a greater force took over. His mind. He knew he should not be on the mat with this expert in the first place. Nothing he had ever learned would be good enough to compete with this man staring hate from his brown slanted eyes, the face twisted, the teeth bared, the body rising on the tips of the toes, and then one foot leaving for the spring. Only something Ashley had never tried before might work. He was committed to what Winch had told him.

  The lights were hot overhead and the crowd seemed to disappear as he forced his unwilling body to approach the master, as he forced his feet wide for a solid stance—and then, as he saw the flash of the monkey boxer striking at his eyes, he also saw the tiny lines of ridge on the man's teeth, and Bill Ashley pushed forward, his hand coming to the boxer's chest.

  Later he would tell people he did not know what happened. But there, in the heat of the center of the mat, he felt his hand go into the hard chest of the monkey boxer, and the boxer's blow forced his own body around Ashley's hand like the spoke of a wheel moving around the hub, and the monkey boxer hit the mat with a thwack. Ashley's hand was still out there in front of him. The boxer twitched and a drop of blood reddened the white mat under the dark black oriental hair.

  "I just pushed. Not hard," said Ashley.

  A few hands clapped and it became applause and a doctor ran up into the ring, and Ashley kept telling everyone he had just pushed. Really, that was all he had done.

  He bowed to the ring, now full of desperate nervous men.

  "He'll live," said the doctor. "He'll live."

  "He'll live," announced the chairman of the event.

  "It may just be a concussion," said the doctor. "Stretcher. Stretcher."

  And that was how it had begun. Ashley had dinner with Winch and learned about a new concept in perfection, frightening in its simplicity.

  William Ashley had, all his life, simply believed the opposite about what perfection was. He had believed it was something martial artists moved toward. But it was the other way around. Perfection was what they all came from.

  As Mr. Winch explained, there was a method, a way, that had to do with the way things moved and were, that was perfect execution of the art. There was one martial art at the beginning, in the deep, deep past of the Orient. From this one art came all the others with all their codes and all their disciplines. And, inasmuch as they differed from this sun source, they were less.

  "Could I learn it?" asked Ashley. They were eating at Hime of Japan, a restaurant on the other side of Manhattan from Madison Square Garden that served a more than passable teriyaki. Ashley maneuvered his chopsticks with skill, creating little crevices with his rich brown meat and vegetables to catch the pungent sour sauce. Winch had only a spoonful of rice, which appeared to take forever for him to finish.

  "No," said Winch, answering Ashley's question. "One cannot put the ocean into a brandy snifter."

  "You mean I'm unworthy?"

  "Why must you make a moral judgment? Is a brandy snifter unworthy of the ocean? Is it not good enough for the ocean? Is it too evil for the ocean? No. A brandy snifter is a brandy snifter and will take a brandy snifter full of salt water. If you must moralize, it is good enough for a brandy snifter of the ocean. But for no more."

  "I have a confession to make," said Ashley. "When I saw the monkey boxer first strike canvas, I hoped he was dead. I kept saying that I only pushed, but I had this sort of fantasy, well, that I had killed him, and I honestly hoped I had killed him, and that it would make me famous."

  Mr. Winch smiled and leaned back in his seat. He placed his stubby yellow hands with the slightly long fingernails on the table.

  "Let me tell you about perfection. All these forms that you have learned come from the killing forms. But they are not a game, as you and the others make of them. A man who makes a game of these things will succumb to a child who does things properly. You were right in your feelings, right to wish that the monkey boxer were dead, because that is what the sun source of the martial arts was designed to do. To kill."

  "I want to learn perfection."

  "What for? You don't need it."

  "I want to learn it, Mr. Winch. I need it. I need to know it. If I have but one life and I do one thing in it, then I would know this perfection."

  "You have not listened, but then you are a brandy snifter, and I know brandy snifters and what brandy snifters will do. So let me say now, the cost is high."

  "I have savings."

  "The cost is very high."

  "How much?"

  "High."

  "In money?"

  "In money," said Mr. Winch, "twenty thousand dollars. That is the money price."

  "I can give you nine thousand now and pay off the rest."

  "Give me eight thousand. There is some traveling to do."

  "I can't go out of the country without clearance. It's sort of a job requirement."

  "Oh. Are you in the CIA?"

  "No, no. Something else."

  "Well, then, brandy snifter, we'll have to forget it. Just as well, too. There is a very high price."

  "Couldn't you teach me here?"

  "That's not the point," said Mr. Winch. "The point is I am not doing it here. I teach at a place in Scotland."

  "Out of the country. Damn. Still, it's this side of the Iron Curtain and maybe, just maybe, my people will think Scotland is secure."

  "They will, brandy snifter, they will. English-speaking peoples have a well of trust that is bottomless. For other English-speaking peoples. I will see you at Kildonan Castle with your eight thousand dollars, brandy snifter."

  Bill Ashley did not tell his wife about the $8,000, and he hid the savings book so that she would not find out. He did not know what he would say when he eventually told her. He would have to tell her, he knew, but he would take care of that after he had seized his share of perfection, as much as he could absorb.

  Th
e job was something else. While the National Security Agency only used Folcroft as a cover for the information bank Ashley worked on, he still had to get vacation permission from the director of the sanitarium, Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  Ashley was always careful to maintain his cover precisely when talking to the crusty old New Englander who thought the information banks contained data on some sort of mental health survey. Ashley always read from the looseleaf notebook on what he was allegedly supposed to be working on before he entered Dr. Smith's office.

  One thing had always struck him as odd, though. Dr. Smith, who was not supposed to be that concerned with what his staff was specifically doing, had a computer terminal to the left of his desk, and unless the NSA had done some clever short-circuiting, that terminal appeared as if it could get a readout from every computer core in the sanitarium.

  Ashley was sure however that NSA was not about to do some dumbass thing like let the cover know what it was covering. Still, it was disconcerting to see it there, disconcerting to just entertain the possibility that the director of a sanitarium might have access to highly classified secrets, information so sensitive that no single programmer had access to work outside of his own, and no two were allowed to socialize.

  "So you wish to take a vacation?" said Smith. "Early, I see."

  "A bit. I feel I could use it, sir."

  "I see. And where are you and your wife going?"

  "Well, I sort of thought I'd go alone this time. A real vacation. I need it."

  "I see. Do you often take vacations alone?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Oh. When was your last vacation alone?"

  "In 1962, sir."

  "You were a bachelor then, weren't you?"

  "Yes. If you must know, sir, I'm having trouble with my wife and I just want to get away from her. I've got to get away for a little while."

  "Do you think your work will suffer if you don't?" asked Smith.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, I see no reason why you shouldn't get a rest. Let's say at the end of the month."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "You're welcome, Ashley. You're a good man."