Last Rites td-100 Read online

  The trouble was, Harold Smith had done his job too well so many years ago. Erasing all traces of Remo Williams's existence had been easy compared to erasing other men's existences. Consequently, two decades later, absolutely no trace remained.

  The orphanage had burned down to the ground with its scant records. Smith had read Remo's record long ago, before the orphanage was consumed. The skimpy account told of a baby boy, not many weeks old, left in a basket on the doorstep of Saint Theresa's Orphanage. A note attached to the babe's swaddling clothes told his name. Remo Williams. That was all. No explanation. No back trail.

  Even Smith's computer file on Remo, maintained over those long years, had been lost when Smith was forced to erase all CURE files during an IRS seizure of the sanitarium in the recent past.

  Smith had hit a brick wall. Remo Williams might well have never existed-just as Harold W Smith had intended all along.

  Only now Harold W Smith very much wanted to locate Remo Williams's parents. The contract between the CURE and the House of Sinanju was due to be renewed in the coming months. And without Remo, CURE might as well shut down.

  The blue contact telephone rang. Smith scooped it up and said, "Yes?"

  "Hail, O Emperor of understanding and enlightenment. I crave the boon of your clear-seeing mind," said a squeaky voice.

  "Go ahead, Master Chiun."

  "Remo is acting strangely."

  "More strangely than usual?"

  "He received your package."

  "It was the best I could do. It is a printout of all US. males whose last name is Williams and whose dates of birth fall within the parameters that would permit them to parent someone Remo's age."

  "He threw these names away, unread."

  "Why?"

  "I do not know why," Chiun said, a testy quality creeping into his tone. "That is why I have called you. Why would these names cease to interest Remo?"

  "I have no idea. Last week he appeared very eager when I told him I was compiling such a list."

  "Yet now he scorns these names. Scorns the very thing that has obsessed him for many seasons."

  "Master Chiun, barring a miracle, I do not believe I can ever locate the information Remo seeks."

  "That is good."

  "You have expressed those sentiments before."

  "And I express them now."

  "In the past you made representations suggesting you know something about Remo's past. Something you refuse to divulge."

  "I do. Remo is Korean."

  "I think that unlikely."

  "Remo's father is Korean. Possibly his mother, as well."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "It is very simple. Remo is outwardly white, but he has taken to Sinanju like no pure-blooded boy of my village ever has. Therefore, he cannot be white. Entirely white. He is Korean. And if he is Korean, his father must be Korean, for it is well-known that Koreanness-true Koreanness-can only be passed from father to son."

  "I see," said Harold Smith vaguely, recognizing that the Master of Sinanju had lapsed into the prejudice and superstition of his ancestors.

  Smith changed the subject. "What do you suggest we do? The next contract expires in the fall. It is bad enough that Remo considers himself on strike, but once the contract lapses, there is no predicting what he will do."

  "Remo must never be allowed to find his father," Chiun said suddenly.

  "Why not?"

  "Because," said the Master of Sinanju in a strange voice, "if he does, he may never forgive me."

  "What do you mean by that?" asked Smith.

  But the Master of Sinanju had already hung up. Harold Smith replaced his receiver and turned his chair around to face Long Island Sound. He steepled his fingers as a sour expression settled over his slightly sharp features.

  All his life he had traded in information. Hard fact was his currency. On hard fact he made countless life-and-death decisions. Harold Smith believed that like the radio transmissions of his long-ago youth, the facts of Remo's lineage not gone forever, but were speeding through the galaxy. If one could take a radio far enough into deep space, fifty-year-old broadcasts of "The Shadow" and "The Green Hornet" and "I Love a Mystery" could be received as clearly as if it were 1939.

  Somewhere out there was a document, a file, a newspaper account or even a human brain that held the secret of Remo Williams.

  It was just a matter of finding it and recognizing it.

  Chapter 4

  Remo Williams walked the sands of Wollaston Beach thinking that all the important places in his life were by the water. Newark. Folcroft. Sinanju. And now Quincy, Massachusetts.

  There was a spanking wind off Quincy Bay. White sea gulls hung in the air like kites, feet dangling, heads craning and twisting down to spy food scraps. Once in a while one would drop to catch a fish or root among discarded food on the curved smile of sand that was the beach.

  Remo was walking north, toward the place where the sand became rock and then salt marsh. Beyond it was the Hummock, a hump of trees and brush that was also known as Arrowhead Hill. There the Moswetuset Indians had dwelt until the white man came, some say to despoil a vibrant culture. But the tribe that had given their name-if unwillingly-to the State of Massachusetts had left behind only a hill not much more prominent than a garbage dump. Beyond the Hummock the blue towers of Boston, a city not among the nation's largest by any means, reared gleaming to put the ancient seat of the Moswetusets to shame.

  As he walked, Remo thought about another beach, more rock than sand, fronting the inhospitable slaty waters of the West Korea Bay, thousands of miles away.

  On that beach a fishing village called Sinanju stood as it had for over five thousand years. Almost no one in the West knew of it. But it was from this village that the Masters of Sinanju-the premier assassins in human history-had ventured forth to serve the great thrones of the ancient world.

  From Egyptian and Chinese dynasties history had long forgotten to the Roman Empire-which, by Sinanju standards, fell in the recent past-the House of Sinanju had been the preeminent historical power. Preeminent but unsuspected by historians and thus unrecorded. In their way, the Masters of Sinanju kept the peace. For when an emperor had an assassin at his disposal, he could crush his rivals, internal and external, thereby preserving his domain. Costly and ruinous wars were prevented this way. Lives were saved. Armies were not wasted on bloody combat. Kingdoms were made stable.

  At least that was how the Master of Sinanju had explained it to Remo.

  That village was old when the Moswetusets were learning to chip flint. It would still be standing when Boston had sunk into rubble. If Chiun had his way, Remo would one day take over the village as the first white Master of Sinanju.

  It wasn't exactly how Remo had envisioned his life when he left the orphanage to seek his fortune. In those days his dreams had a different size. A policeman's salary, wife and kids and the traditional clapboard house with a white picket fence. Houses like that were all over America. Remo had never lived in one. Not for long, anyway. The simple dreams had always eluded him.

  He couldn't see himself living in Sinanju. Ever. But the years had made him more part of Sinanju than America.

  Newark, the city of his youth, was no more. Riots and neglect and the grinding passing of time had obliterated it.

  This city was only the latest in a long string of places where Remo had lived since shedding his old life in that other place on the water, Folcroft Sanitarium. Remo might live here another year, or even ten. It would never be home. There was no home for an orphan who had never had a family. Not in the comfort of the past. Not in the uncertainty of the future.

  Remo walked on. Having come from nowhere, he was not concerned that his path was aimless.

  He became aware of the Master of Sinanju padding alongside him long after Chiun had joined him. Remo had been looking down at the sand, not up at the world and the sky.

  "You are a duck that walks," Chiun squeaked.

  "I'm a duck that
walks," agreed Remo.

  "A target for any who would do you harm."

  "That's called a sitting duck."

  "For a Master of Sinanju to walk along so oblivious to danger, you might as well be sitting."

  "I'm in no danger."

  "It is when you are most lulled that danger rears its water-buffalo skull."

  "That's 'ugly head.'"

  "There is no difference," Chiun said dismissively. "What troubles you, Remo?"

  "I don't belong anywhere."

  "You belong to me."

  "And after you pass on?"

  "Why this preoccupation with death?"

  "It's my trade," said Remo bitterly. "I never wanted to be an assassin. I'm sick of death."

  "This has troubled you these last few months. Something new troubles you today, my son."

  Remo held his tongue for a full minute before speaking. "She came to me again last night," he said softly. "My mother."

  "That hussy!" Chiun hissed.

  "I thought you said she didn't exist."

  "She is a fragment of your imagination, therefore she is a hussy. Because what other kind of woman would spring unbidden from your white mind?"

  "She's real. She told me to keep looking for my father."

  "And so, like an obedient son, you have stopped?"

  "She showed me something else."

  "What is that?"

  "A vision."

  "An hallucination," spat Chiun.

  "You didn't say that when I saw the Great Wang that time years ago."

  "Seeing the Great Wang was the last passage of a Master in training to full Masterhood."

  "Yeah, well, it was good to get all those dippy rites of passage over with. The Night of the Salt. The Dream of Death. The Master's Trial. It was getting to be like puberty every three years."

  "There is still one other rite you have not yet undergone."

  "What is it? The Dance of the Dippy Duck?"

  "No. The Rite of Attainment."

  Remo regarded the Boston skyline. "Never heard of it."

  "It is necessary to prepare a full Master for the final stage in his responsibilities to the House."

  "What's that?" Remo asked without interest.

  "It sanctifies a full Master so that upon the retirement of his teacher, he can assume the title of Reigning Master of Sinanju."

  "You planning on retiring?"

  "No."

  Remo stopped suddenly. He turned to face the Master of Sinanju. He was rotating his thick wrists, something he did when agitated. They were as unalike as two men could be. Remo towered over the old Korean. His white T-shirt and gray chinos were casual while Chiun's riotous scarlet-and-lavender kimono belonged in a Chinese wedding party. One ageless, the other ancient. "Little Father," said Remo.

  Chiun searched his pupil's troubled features. "Yes?"

  "That vision she showed me. It was of you." Chiun brightened.

  "Me. Really, Remo?"

  Remo frowned darkly. "Why are you suddenly interested in a vision of a woman you say you don't believe in?" he asked tightly.

  "Because the vision mentioned someone of importance. Namely, me. Continue, Remo. What did she say about me?"

  "Nothing. She showed me a cave."

  "What was in this cave?"

  "You were."

  "What was I doing?"

  "Decomposing."

  The Master of Sinanju stepped back as if struck by a blow. He narrowed his hazel eyes. "She lied!" he shrieked.

  "She said I had to find my father and when I did, I would enter that cave and discover the truth about myself."

  Chiun gathered up his wispy chin whiskers in a pout. "You'd been dead a while, Little Father. You were a mummy."

  "How did you know it was me?" Chiun challenged.

  "It was your face, your hair, your bone structure." The Master of Sinanju made a fist of his face, the deep seams and wrinkles gathering tighter and tighter like parchment wrinkling as it absorbed water.

  "When did she say this evil day would come to pass?"

  "She didn't. Exactly. Only that it would be soon if I kept looking for my father."

  "You must not seek out that man, Remo!" Chiun said, waggling a stern finger in Remo's face.

  "That's exactly what I was thinking."

  "And you must go near no caves."

  "That goes double for you, you know."

  Chiun stroked his tendril of a beard thoughtfully. "And we must seek out a place where that busybody woman can vex you no longer."

  "I'm quitting CURE, Little Father."

  "Yes, yes, Let me think."

  "For good this time. I mean it."

  Chiun fluttered his winglike kimono sleeves like an ungainly, flightless bird. "Yes, yes. Of course you do."

  "The organization can dragoon someone else if they want. Let 'em make an enforcement arm out of Arnold Schwarzenegger, for all I care. I've done my time, paid my dues. It's time to move on."

  "We must pack."

  "To go where?"

  "You must trust me. Do you trust me?"

  "Sure. You know I do."

  "Then come. For I have been neglectful in my duties to the House. You have been a full Master long enough. It is time that you undergo the Rite of Attainment."

  And the Master of Sinanju ran down to the lapping waters of Quincy Bay, leaving no sandal prints in the loose beige sand.

  Remo followed, likewise leaving no trace of his passing.

  When they reached the bay, it was in unison. They seemed to step up onto the calm water as if mounting a shifting ledge of rock. The water supported them. They ran out past the anchored sailboats and rounded Squantum headland, where legend had it Captain Miles Standish first met Squanto, the Indian who taught the pilgrims how to survive their first harsh New England winter by planting corn.

  "Where are we going?" Remo asked as they ran under the long bridge to Moon Island and entered Boston Harbor, water barely splashing under their feet.

  "There," Chiun said, pointing north.

  And on the other side of Boston Harbor, Remo spotted the fat concrete radar tower of Logan Airport. A 747 was lifting off in their direction, trailing a dirty fan of exhaust.

  "I thought you said we had to pack first."

  "Pack!" Chiun spat. "There is no time to pack! Make haste, O slugabed."

  "SO, WHERE ARE WE HEADED, Little Father?" Remo asked after the Boston-to-New York City TWA passenger jet lifted off over Boston Harbor.

  "That is a surprise."

  "If we're going to Sinanju, I'm grabbing my seat flotation cushion and getting off here."

  "We are not going to Sinanju."

  "Good."

  "You do not deserve to visit the Pearl of the Orient."

  "Oyster of the Yellow Sea is more like it," muttered Remo.

  Chiun had the window seat and was looking out. "Wing holding up?" asked Remo.

  "I am not looking at the wing."

  "What are you looking at, then?"

  "There!" said Chiun in the high, squeaky voice he used when excited. "Behold, Remo."

  Remo leaned over to see out the window.

  The wheels were up, and the TWA 747 was swinging back over land. They were south of Boston. Remo recognized the sinuous Neponset River separating Boston from Quincy.

  Then he saw it.

  Nestled beside the T-shaped high school was the unmistakable place they called home. Even from the air it stood out.

  Once it had been a church. A real-estate developer had come along and replaced the stained glass with vinyl-clad replacement windows, added doghouse and shed roof dormers to the roofline and converted it into a sixteen-unit condominium. The Master of Sinanju had acquired it from Harold Smith two contract negotiations back.

  "Castle Sinanju," said Chiun proudly. "Look how it dwarfs all lesser domiciles."

  Remo folded his lean arms. "If I never see it again, it'll be fine with me."

  "Philistine," sniffed the Master of Sinanju.

 
The 747 leveled off at two thousand feet and followed the coastline south. Remo recognized the hook of Cape Cod, the seat belt light winked off and he settled down to enjoy the flight.

  A black-haired stewardess came up and leaned so far down, her cleavage almost plopped into Remo's lap. "Sir, you look like a strong man. We could use a strong man in the galley."

  "Is there a problem?"

  The stewardess looked up and down the aisles. "I don't want to alarm the other passengers. If you could just follow me."

  "Sure," said Remo.

  "It is a trap," warned Chiun. "On an airplane?"

  "There are traps and there are traps," sniffed Chiun. Smiling, the stewardess led the way to the galley and, when Remo entered, she ran the curtain shut. "What's the problem?" asked Remo.

  "My uniform zipper is stuck" And she turned to present her shapely back to him.

  "It's all the way up."

  "I know. Could you get it down for me?"

  "If you say so," said Remo. The zipper came down easily, and the stewardess wriggled out of her uniform, turned and gave Remo the full sunshine of her radiant smile.

  "What's this?" he asked.

  "Your free initiation."

  "Into what?" Remo asked suspiciously.

  "The Mile High Club."

  At that moment the curtain drew back and a honey blond head poked in. "What's going on?" the new arrival hissed.

  "He's just helping me with my uniform zipper." The blond stewardess looked from the stewardess in her underwear to Remo and slipped in.

  "My panty hose are sagging. Do you think you could do something with them?"

  "I don't do panty-hose realignments," said Remo.

  "You don't?" The blond stewardess looked stricken. The other stewardess crooked her fingers and looked as if she wanted to gouge the blonde's eyes out.

  "He doesn't," she said tartly.

  "He's strictly a zipper man. Now, get back to serving peanuts."

  "Can I watch?" wondered the blonde.

  "No!" Remo and the first stewardess said together.

  "How about I just close my eyes and listen?"

  "This is a private party," the first stewardess hissed.

  "This is no party at all," said Remo.

  "Excuse me." And he exited the galley.

  Four hands reached out to pull him back but ended up clutching at empty air as Remo glided back to his seat and turned to the Master of Sinanju.