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  "I cannot obey that command, little father." Chiun spun to face his television set, and turning it on, he remained silent.

  Remo changed to a loose-fitting suit. The wound had caked and was becoming itchy. He ignored it. At the door to the suite, Remo said good-bye to the Master of Sinanhu.

  "Thank you, little father, for what you have given me."

  Without turning to set his eyes upon Remo, Chiun spoke.

  "You have a chance. He may not conceive that a white man can do what you do."

  "Then I do have a chance. Why are you so glum?"

  "Chances are for cards and dice. Not for us. My teaching is like the rose fragrance in a north wind."

  "Will you wish me luck?"

  "You have learned naught," said Chiun, and was silent again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The traffic jam into Nuihc Street stretched for miles, Remo got out of the taxi and trotted past the cars with angry frustrated drivers, men who had been told in the wee hours of the morning that the final day of the convention was to be in a new building, the new headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Drivers.

  When a few had complained that they already had a headquarters in Washington, they were told that Washington would be only the drivers' headquarters. Confusing. There were lots of confusing things about their new president. This was one more.

  Remo pushed his way through a long line of men at the entrance, weaving and dodging complaints of 'Hey, don't you know how to get in line?"

  A few recognized him as the new recording secretary. The guard at the gate was wearing a bandage. Oh, that was the man who had held his fish last night, at the beginning of the long night in which every effort to avoid the extreme plan had failed—and ultimately the extreme plan itself had failed.

  The guard did not recognize him in daylight. He looked at Remo's delegate card.

  "Oh yeah," said the guard. "Jethro wants to see you. He's right inside."

  Remo saw Jethro in the large entrance hallway. Drapes hid what was obviously a sign. Perhaps those drapes would unveil the driver's emblem, or worse, the emblem of the new superunion.

  Jethro greeted people as they arrived with the usual 'howarya," and 'goodtoseeya." Remo walked up to within a spit. He saw Jethro notice him, saw the faint flicker of fear in the blue eyes, then the phony smile.

  "Howarya fella, good to see ya," said the president of the International Brotherhood of Drivers.

  "Glad to be here, Gene. A great day. A great day," said the recording secretary. They embraced warmly, the drivers lined up watching union solidarity at work.

  "Let's go downstairs. I want to talk to you. Union business."

  "Good idea," said Remo.

  Friendly, the two union leaders made their way to the elevator. Friendly, they got into the elevator. Friendly, they spoke until the doors closed and Jethro had pressed the combination button.

  "You lying sonuvabitch," said Jethro. "You said you had pined us."

  "You're hurt that I lied," laughed Remo. "When were you born?"

  "Who do you work for?" said Jethro.

  "I don't work for Nuihc," said Remo. "Where is he?"

  "None of your business," said Jethro.

  "Am I going to meet him?"

  "Sure," said Jethro, a cold smile crossing his face.

  Remo hummed. He hummed as they entered the large basement. He hummed as he saw the auto-length sign for the union that would destroy a nation and the union movement with it. He hummed as Jethro worked the combination lock on a door to a room that seemed the center of a whole waterpipe network.

  He hummed when the door shut behind him.

  Jethro went behind a barren iron desk. Remo spotted the nozzles on the ceiling, shower nozzles.

  Jethro reached under the desk.

  "I have a switch here that will unleash something that will kill you painfully. Now I can make it hard on you, or I can kill you with my hands."

  Remo shouldn't have done it. It was highly unprofessional. But the laugh was out before he thought of controlling it.

  "Sorry," said Remo. "I just thought of a joke."

  "All right. Have it your way," said Jethro. "I can stop this process when it becomes very painful and then you'll beg me to let you talk."

  "Right," said Remo fighting back an instant guffaw. "Beg. Right. Beg you." But it was no use. He laughed, and then let the laughter roar out full and pleasing.

  He stopped laughing when a fine spray began forming from the nozzles. Jethro donned a mask. Obviously the substance was to be breathed in. Let your blood stream carry the poison, and perhaps, if it followed an old, simple mechanism of Sinanju discarded in the twelfth century, perhaps Remo would begin to dissolve.

  The masters of Sinanju discarded this mechanism because someone accidentally discovered a simple defence to it. Don't breathe. Practically any swimmer could overcome it, and everyone who had body discipline thought it a joke. Besides, the whole machinery was cumbersome and the children liked to play with it, so, as Chiun had said, it went the way of the bow and arrow.

  Remo watched Jethro stare at him sardonically through the eyes of the oxygen mask. Remo suddenly noticed one danger. Laughter. He turned his eyes away from Jethro and tried to think of something sad. He couldn't. So he thought of Dr. Smith and all the discomforting things of his life. In a few moments, the fog began to disappear into an exhaust system. Jethro ripped off his oxygen mask. A look of triumphant hate was on his face.

  "Die," he said. "Die painfully because you now cannot move your hands or your mouth or your eyes. You can barely hear me now. So let me tell you before the hearing goes, you are going to dissolve into a puddle. A puddle like people step into. A puddle that will flush along with the rest of the scum into the sewer system."

  Too much. Dr. Smith and every sad thing in his life could not overcome this.

  "Yahhhh," said Remo curling over and grabbing his sides in hysterical laughter. The roaring, guffawing laughter made him stagger to a wall for balance. He looked back at Jethro. There was shock. The shocked face of Jethro. It was hysterical. Why didn't Jethro stop doing those hysterical things? Perhaps Jethro thought it was the mist that was affecting him. Remo regained control.

  "Sorry," said Remo. "Sorry to laugh at you. Where's Nuihc."

  "Uh," said Jethro.

  "Nuihc," said Remo.

  "First door to your right. Knock three times."

  Jethro's mouth hung open. Beads of sweat formed on his head. He rubbed his hands on his bell bottom suit. Then anger. He assumed his stance. Remo peered around the desk at the toes. They were pressed too far in. A beginner's mistake.

  "The toes," said Remo. "Too far in."

  "Come and get it," said Jethro.

  Remo reached a hand around the desk and felt for the socket, Jethro tried to crack the hand with a downstroke. Remo merely removed Jethro's hand. At the wrist.

  When he saw the mist coming from the nozzle, Remo ripped the mask and the tubing from its desk connection.

  Jethro's one hand gripped the bloody stump of his other hand. Remo took a large green Garby Bag from a shelf. Obviously the mist did not affect plastic. He slipped the bag under Jethro and sat him down on the desk. Like putting pants on a baby, Remo slipped the bag up to Jehhro's armpits. Jethro's eyes widened in terror. His face reddened from trying not to breathe. Remo got a little metal twister that came with the Garby's and poked it into Jethro's solar plexus to help him breathe. He did. Exhale, then, full inhale.

  "Don't lose the twist," said Remo. "Some of these bags can open by themselves if you don't have the twist."

  Then, he walked out, shutting the door behind him and breathing clean full basement air. Which was not the best of air in the world, but it would not kill him.

  The first door on the right. Remo saw it immediately. He had one edge, which he had never mentioned to Chiun. Having been trained in Sinanju, Nuihc would be vulnerable to this edge. Chiun had grown to expect certain levels of performance from Remo. But Nui
hc would not expect white hands to move that fast. Not expect a white body to respond that well. Not expect Remo to be what he was. Nuihc would be vulnerable to the constant danger to which every student arid master of Sinanju was vulnerable. The constant danger they were taught to avoid from birth. Overconfidence. They were taught this constantly precisely because they were vulnerable.

  Remo knocked three times.

  "Come in, Remo," sounded a thin voice.

  Remo opened the door into a room that was a garden. There, sitting beside a pool, was Nuihc, his face that of a young Chiun, smooth and alive, and just a mite deadlier than Chiun.

  Remo pretended not to see the body in its surroundings, pretended he did not have the eyes that could see things meant to be hidden.

  "Over here. By the pool," said Nuihc.

  "I don't see you. Oh, yeah. There you are," said Remo.

  "Yes. Over here. Where you saw me the first time, Remo. Anyone who can work the Scarlet Ribbon, can see a man sitting peacefully."

  Remo closed the door behind him.

  "Come. Sit by me."

  Remo stood still. He would have more room to analyze the attack with some distance between them.

  Nuihc smiled. "Very bright. Good. I like that. Did you kill Jethro? Of course you did. You wouldn't be here if you hadn't. You probably think me foolish in giving you the knowledge that I knew you saw me. As our mutual teacher has often taught, we should give nothing. But I give you something because I want something in return. Chiun has obviously done a remarkable job." Remo picked up a note of condescension in the voice. Nuihc had just given too much.

  "Yeah," said Remo. "I'm pretty good." Maybe Nuihc would take just a mite more. Accept the boast as a sign of weakness and stupidity.

  "Come, come, Remo. Let us not indulge in such silliness. Let us indulge in what you are and what you want. What do you want?"

  "I want to kill you."

  "Ah, do not try to throw me off with such foolishness. We do not have time. I saw you on television the other day. Magnificent. You spoke well. You loved it. You made very pretty songs. Chiun has told you what we mean by songs, I presume."

  "Yes," said Remo.

  "Good. We need a new president of the International Brotherhood of Drivers who will become president of a new transportation union. I presume that is why you are here. To stop it. Of course you are. Remo, your presidency is only your first step to power. Come with me and all men will be at your feet. All crowds will listen to your voice. All men will proclaim you great. Your name. Your being. You will be known far and wide. Come, join."

  "I'd have to leave the persons I work for. I have a strong commitment to them."

  "Really. I don't know whom you work for, but I wonder what they have done for you. Tell me. Honestly. What have they done for you?"

  "I get whatever I need."

  "Really. What? Maybe I can stop it. Seriously, what do you get?"

  "Well, I have just about all the money I need."

  "And that buys you?"

  "Uh, clothes, food, although I imagine you know the diet I'm on, it's necessary."

  "That you would have to undergo, with me or them. Yes, what else?"

  "Uh, I don't have to worry about rent."

  "Hmmm. You have several palaces, I take it."

  "Well, no. You see I live mostly in hotels here and there."

  "Oh, I see. Yes, I know now how they have you. You're a tool."

  "No. No. It's I can do pretty much what I want."

  "What do you want to do? You know that games of physical skill are of no interest to us. The challenge is too little. What do you do?"

  "Train mostly."

  "A good tool needs that. What do you really want, Remo? Come on. We're being honest. I'll tell you whatever you want to know about me. Tell you how I cheated my village. Tell you even what makes me unhappy or happy. Come on. We're graduates of that same school."

  "All right, Nuihc. I want a home. I mean a home. And I want a family, not those one-night stands where it's more work in the line of business than it is love. I'd like to screw a woman once just to get off my rocks, not to get into her mind. I'd like to yell at a kid. My kid. And hold my kid. And teach my kid not to be afraid."

  "The president of the new transportation union will be required to have a wife and family."

  "Yeah, and I'll be dead in a year."

  "With both of us working together?"

  "I don't want to have to kill Chiun."

  "He wouldn't come against both of us, Remo."

  Remo waited a minute, staring vacantly at the floor.

  "Done," he said. "I've got to do something for myself for once." He opened his hand and offered it to Nuihc. He walked openly to him, with the sign that he bore no weapon. Nuihc smiled broadly and extended his hand, too.

  "The greater union is us. You and me," said Nuihc.

  The hands met, but Remo's kept going, slicing into the padded shoulder of the suit, taking bone in the first exhilarating feeling of a score in attack. He had scored against this Nuihc, and so well and so thoroughly that he moved into an interior line attack for the kill. No waiting to work up the shoulder and safely take it apart for the more cautious attack. With the incredible speed and force of the perfect blow, Remo brought the elbow into the chest. But the chest was not there. Mistake. Remo had scored because of over-confidence and trust on the other side, and now he would die for the same reason. His elbow was forward in air, and he was off balance because the blow needed a body to meet it.

  A searing pain ripped his ribs and tore from his ribs to his shoulder. He was going dully forward, down onto a pathway of rocks. He could not move. He was not dead, but he could not move. He felt his mouth fill with warm wetness. Blood. He saw it spill onto the rock path, form a little stream, and then tip over into the clear, blue pool, making it foggy where it landed.

  "Fool," said Nuihc. "Fool. Why are you such a fool? Magnificent you were. That was magnificent. In ten years you could have killed me. In ten years your interior attack would have worked also. But you are a fool. Fool. Fool. Together we could rule the world. Together all would be yours. But you attacked me, fool. And you attacked like a fool."

  Remo tried to see Nuihc for the final blow he knew would come shortly. But he could not move his head. He could only stare at the growing foggy area where the water, now filling with his life, had once been clear.

  Then a voice, a voice Remo knew well.

  "You talk of fools, Nuihc. You are the fool of fools. Did you think my student would desert his village as you have deserted yours. Did you think the Master of Sinanju would desert a student as you have deserted your blessed village of Sinanju." Chiun's voice was filled with anger.

  "Master. This is a white man. You would not harm me for a white man, me a son of the village of Sinanju."

  "For this white man, as you call him, I would rent the core of the earth and fill its molten center with the blood of a thousand such as you. Beware. If this white man, as you call him, is dying, I shall take your ears and make you chew them, you dog-dropping."

  "But you cannot turn your skills on a member of your village, even a member who has deserted," said Nuihc.

  "Duck-hearted one, dare you speak the rules of the Master of Sinanju, your infamy still trailing behind you like excrement in the wind. Speak you now to me of the rules?"

  "He is not dead and will not die." Nuihc's voice trembled with fear.

  Strange, thought Remo, he should not fear. He should have been trained to deal with fear because next to arrogance, fear was the major enemy. Stranger still was Chiun's boast to Nuihc, and the insults. Chiun had always said to threaten damage was to give a man a shield. To spew insults was to give him energy, except in a case where the enemy could be provoked to foolish anger. From his voice, Nuihc was obviously not angry. It must be, thought Remo, that Chiun knew Nuihc could not be fooled by talk of peace or appearances of weakness.

  "Leave," said Chiun.

  "I leave, but I have ten ye
ars in which to deprive you of your special student."

  "Why do you let me know this?"

  "Because I hate you and your father and your direct lineage from the original Master of Sinanju."

  Remo heard faint footsteps scurry out to the hall. He tried to call out to Chiun to stop him, but even if he could, he wondered whether Chiun would try. He felt Chiun's hands on his back working quickly and deftly, and suddenly the incredible, immobilizing pain filtered away and Remo could move his head, then his shoulders, and with great pain begin to sit up slowly.

  "Now you can move," said Chiun.

  With a sudden wrenching of his back, Remo sat up, grimacing. He tried to control it. He did not wish the little father see him succumb to pain.

  "Rush. Rush," said Chiun angrily. "You are so American. You could not wait a measly five years."

  "I had to do my job."

  "Do not make that mistake again, but I respected you for it. Next time you will be ready for Nuihc. I cannot kill another member of the village."

  "But I heard you say you would."

  "You hear many foolish things. Quiet your insolent tongue. He has made a grave mistake. It is not ten years. And that sort of mistake at our level is deadly."

  "What if he returns in less than five years?"

  "We run. Time is on our side. Why give away advantages?"

  "Yes, little father."

  Something still troubled Remo.

  "Did you really mean I would be better than the Masters of Sinanju eventually, even though I am not Korean."

  "No," said Chiun. "That was a song for your benefit."

  "I do not believe you," said Remo.

  "Silence! You have almost destroyed in one foolish moment my work of years."

  Remo was silent. Then he lifted himself to his feet, wincing.